


Wanderer

by Everliah



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everliah/pseuds/Everliah
Summary: It all began with two wanderers, who just happened to be lost at the same time.





	1. Jasmine

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I know, I know, I’ve started loads of new fanfictions lately and bugged you all with notifications and I’M SORRY!! I took a long look at the previous ‘Wanderer’ and decided it wasn’t what I wanted but the reviews I had on it were lovely and optimistic so I refrained from deleting it and instead changed the title of that fic to ‘The Eight Years We Wasted.’ THIS, however, is much more what I had in mind, and so begins my first proper Dramione fanfiction! I hope you all enjoy:)

** Chapter One **

****

The stone underneath her feet was cold and sharp, chilling her bare skin and erupting goosebumps along her arms. She wrapped the blanket more firmly around herself but continued walking.

Hermione didn't quite know where she was going, only that she couldn't sleep because the castle was too eerily quiet and her mind was numb and there was something heavy, settled deep within her, that toppled precariously every time she tried to rest. It didn't help that she closed her eyes, and flashing lights from whizzing spells would assault the blackness lingering there. Every moment of quiet would lend itself to screams and yells, to a fear so debilitating she felt winded, and had to remind herself that this serenity was safe, that she could enjoy it, that she could just _breathe_ -

Hogwarts was not the place she remembered it to be.

Where once, these same stone walls had been the foundation of everything safe and magical in the world, all Hermione could see was death. There were spiders lurking in the darkness, and the swish of a cloak sent her searching for a superseding glint of a silver mask. It was as though every time she closed her eyes, or stared for a little while longer than necessary, she was back _there_. Back with the monsters and the screams and the threat of a pain so agonising you’d beg Death to take you.

She had thought coming back to finish her final year would have been healing, something like facing her past and raising her chin in defiance to show she wasn’t afraid. This was not like that.

Instead, it all felt like another stab in her back, another flesh wound to match the scar on her arm. Instead of closure, all Hermione had gotten so far was more pain. Instead of covering the grave, she was drowning in the dirt, suffocating in the coffin along with everything else that had happened here.

She had not had a full night’s sleep since she had returned two weeks ago.

Harry and Ron had been adamant they wanted to move on with their lives, and Hermione could honestly say she had been bitter. Though they deserved peace, she selfishly tried to persuade them to change their minds because Hogwarts was nothing without their competitive but fruitless games of chess and Harry’s consequent groan of exasperation when Ron won yet again. They wrote to her every day, but Harry’s signature could not replace the frown of concentration he would do when trying to understand something new, and Pig’s friendly bite of her fingers was nothing compared to the heavy weight of Ron’s arm as he flung it around her shoulders.

She missed them.

She missed normalcy. She missed everything they had been promised before the war had gone and ripped it away from them. Hermione missed living without the poisonous inflection of fear that quickened her heartbeat when she walked down an empty corridor on her own, and the way the three of them used to thrive on youth, gulping it down and wasting it. They should have savoured the way the sun felt on their faces, when their biggest worry was Snape’s essay due in the following day. They should have savoured living.

Because though Hermione was more than aware of her heart thumping against her ribcage, she was also aware that what she was doing was not living. It was hardly surviving.

So she wandered along the cold corridors of Hogwarts for the thirteenth night in a row, wincing when her bare feet would step on something sharp, willing her jumbled mind to be quiet. She felt like a puzzle of her old self, mixed up and jagged with the broken pieces, stabbing anyone who tried to touch her. No matter how many hours she spent in the library, or how many of her favourite books she would read, Hermione could not get the pieces of her old self to fall back into place. She refused to believe she was broken. Maybe she was just lost.

The moonlight spilled in from the high windows, casting the castle in a conflict of light and shadow. Hermione made sure to avoid the light. It made her brain louder, caused her to squint her eyes, and frown. It made her feel too clean and exposed.

She wasn’t clean. Her hands were as dirty as the next person’s. Maybe even dirtier, drenched in so much blood it poured through her fingertips.

If she listened carefully, if she held her breath, Hermione could swear she heard it dripping on the floor as she walked, leaving a trail behind her.

She didn’t know where she was going. She never did. She just folded back the red cover when staring at the darkness of the ceiling made patterns dance behind her eyelids, slipped out of the dormitory then Common Room and started walking. Tonight, she’d had the initiative to bring a blanket with her, sharply aware of the sudden gust of cold that had blown in from the Northern seas.

Hermione used to love snow, but the idea this year made her stomach sick.

She didn’t know whether it was because every snowflake promised for the upcoming winter reminded her of an innocence and a playfulness she had wasted, or if it was the way it made her squint against the brightness every time she so much as glanced outside. There was a dull, throbbing ache inside of her when she remembered how the twins used to conduct the biggest snowball fights in Hogwarts history. Hermione wished she had tears to show for it, but her eyes were always dry nowadays. It was as though even her grief had given up.

She tugged the blanket closer to her body, leaning her head into the softness of it, and rounded the next corner. She stopped.

He hadn’t seen her yet. That much was obvious. If he had, he would look no doubt as she felt; like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He sat in the shadows, with his back pressed against the stone wall, head bowed so his face was cast in obdurate shadow. Hermione knew it was him though. She recognised the golden glint of his hair, and the promise of an angular, aristocratic face tucked into his cloak.

If she kept quiet, she could turn around and leave without him ever realising she was there.

Instead, for some reason she could not fathom, she found her feet moving closer to him. He looked up then, and his eyes widened fractionally before he continued to stare at her. She came to a stop when there were only a couple metres between them. Hermione frowned at the space, thinking it felt more like oceans.

“Are you okay?” she whispered. Her voice sounded harsher in the silence, louder. She cringed.

Malfoy’s eyebrows knitted into a frown and he looked away. His thin lips were pursed tightly together. Hermione swallowed and it was only when he looked back at her abruptly that she realised he’d heard the way that life caught in her throat.

“I’m alive, Granger,” was all he said in lieu of a reply. The laughter that followed was a huff of scathing disbelief, exhaled from his nostrils. He didn’t look amused in the slightest. “It’s more than what anyone expected of me.”

Hermione tightened her arms around her. “I think the same could be said for both of us.”

Now, Malfoy scoffed. There was a hint of something laced through the pale, sharp lines of his face, and it was the only emotion she’d seen on him since they’d come back.

“Everyone expected _you_ to survive, Granger,” he told her, voice nearly choked on bitter mirth. “You’re the brains, after all. Even if Potter hadn’t come out kicking, we all expected you to. You’ve always been stubborn and I doubted a war would take that out of you-”

“I’m not surviving,” she muttered brokenly. It fractured on the air between them and she _hated_ it. “I’m barely existing, Draco.”

He looked surprised at that. His eyes were wide, almost scared, and he stared at her for what felt like hours but was in reality only a few stolen minutes they couldn’t afford to keep. Malfoy cleared his throat and, though it looked to pain him, offered her a small smile. Hermione thought it resembled more of a grimace.

“Neither am I.”

She sat down on the floor beside him, and there was still the empty space and so much more between them, but he bristled at the action. They just sat there, not exactly relishing in the other’s company, and stared at the opposite wall, feeling the biting cold in the flesh of their backs and legs but making no move to leave.

“I knew the war was inevitable but I didn’t think it would be like this,” said Hermione eventually.

Malfoy frowned. There was a silent battle waged in his eyes but it seemed his curiosity won out for he asked, reluctance fringing his voice, “What do you mean?”

She licked at her chapped lips. “I thought I’d be happy. I thought I’d be relieved it’s over… I am. I mean, of course I am. But there’s too much grief to feel it completely.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Granger,” Malfoy replied bitterly, and she looked at him to see his face twisted. The moonlight made him look haunting. “You came out on the winning side.”

Almost absently, her eyes trailed to his ankle, and she could see the band of light peeking out from beneath his pyjama bottoms. It was a bright blue: _pending trial._

“I’m starting to think there is no winning side,” she told him quietly.

He let out a derisive laugh. “Don’t you dare, Granger.”

“We’ve all lost, in some way or another-”

“Yes, but you’re not about to be locked in Azkaban with only the Dementors for company so I think it’s safe to say you win in this situation!”

His words were loud and rushed and they echoed along the corridor, ricocheting off stone and making them both wince.

Hermione looked at him, horror crawling up her throat. Her face felt slack. “They want to send you to Azkaban?” she whispered.

Malfoy held her gaze for a moment before he looked back at his hands. They were deathly white, long fingers with almost invisible scars written into the skin. They were trembling slightly.

“I’m an accessory to a number of murders, Granger. You should know that. You were there for some of them.”

Without meaning to, her fingers brushed along her forearm. Malfoy noticed, and his eyes narrowed. He swallowed and looked away.

“But you’re just a child,” she murmured.

Malfoy’s head ducked, and he muttered, “Does it matter?”

“It should!” fumed Hermione, and she felt that familiar burn of anger flare up inside of her. It surprised her a little, and it looked as though she’d shocked Malfoy too. This was the most emotion she had felt since the war. “You had no choice.”

He offered her a tight-lipped smile. “Tell that to the Wizengamot, Granger. To them, I’m just my father’s son.”

She refrained from reaching over and taking his hand. Hermione shook herself and wondered where the thought came from. Maybe she was just so deprived of any human contact that her loneliness convinced her touching Malfoy was a good idea.

Even so, she breathed in shakily and said in the steadiest voice she could muster, “You aren’t to me.”

Malfoy froze. He didn’t look at her, but she felt better that the words were out there for him to do with them what he liked.

This wasn’t the same Malfoy that had tormented her through school. This was a boy as broken as she was. His pieces were like hers, clinging on for dear life, fraying at the edges so if anyone tried to get close, they would be deterred. He was drowning in loneliness.

Instead of replying to her, he picked at a loose thread on his cloak. Hermione thought it odd that anything he owned would be even the slightest bit shabby. He asked offhandedly, “You know why I’m here. Why are you?”

"I don't sleep much," Hermione offered. "The inside of my head can get noisy sometimes."

“Well, that’s no surprise. It’s all that incessant prattling you do,” said Malfoy, but he was smirking and if she hadn’t been so taken aback that he was actually joking with her, she would’ve had the urge to punch him.

Malfoy sobered up then and he stared at her, offering a strained smile. "My mind's pretty fucked up too."

Hermione didn’t say anything, and they settled into a quiet companionship. She didn’t dare call it anything else, lest she ruin it completely, for the sensation of having another heart beating next to her was too comforting to give up. It was only when the shadows shifted, and the darkness outside the windows lighted suddenly that they stirred.

She realised she should probably go to try and wring a few hours of sleep before the school day started. Maybe this wandering would tire her bones out eventually that her body would just shut down on itself.

Hermione adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and got to her feet. She stared at the floor, before glancing at Malfoy. He was frowning at his hands, twisting a silver ring around his index finger. She wondered if she should bid him goodbye, but though her lips parted, no sound came out, and she closed it again, turning on her heel and walking away.

Draco regarded her back reproachfully and he don’t know what made him say it, but he called after her, “Jasmine tea.”

Granger spun round. She shot him a demanding frown. Draco nearly rolled his eyes and stormed away from her there and then, but refrained from doing so. Figures that even her eyebrows would demand things of him. He mumbled, almost embarrassed, “That’s what helps me sleep.”

Granger’s face cleared with realisation, and she looked at him with something resembling gratitude. He swallowed, and kept his lips sealed as she continued walking down the corridor.

The space next to him felt cold and empty, and he shifted his cloak tighter around his shoulders, head dropping. Draco sighed, climbing to his feet and setting off down the other side of the corridor.

There was nothing to suggest they had met at all. No witness. No portrait. Only the windows and the fresh, mellowing sunlight and the stone walls that had always been so chilling. They were just wanderers, who happened to be lost at the same time, desperately trying to find _something_ to make life feel like it was worth living.

Hermione woke in her bed much later on, the taste of jasmine lingering on her tongue. It was the most she had slept in a long time.


	2. Just Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know. I’m rubbish. Positively rubbish! This is hopefully a {albeit late} Christmas present to you! It’s KIND OF important, KIND OF a filler but I need to establish a narrative since the last chapter was very much CONTEXT then preview of what this fic is essentially. Anyway, I hope you like this! And I hope you all had a very merry Christmas!
> 
>  

 

** Chapter Two **

****

She’d overslept.

Her blankets had come loose from where she’d dragged them to under her chin, and were haphazardly strewn across her legs. One arm was splayed above her head, as though she was basking in the glow of the winter sun, whilst the other rested on her stomach, and she nestled deeper into her pillow. There was that unfamiliar stinging in Hermione’s eyes when she blinked them open, that vague sensation of being doused in sobriety when she had just seconds before been deep in sleep. She hadn’t woken to it in a long time, and when she craned her neck to peer groggily around her room, she was surprised to see that the sun was already soaking it. Usually, Hermione woke early enough, or didn’t sleep at all, and was privy to watching the first tender and unsure rays of light explore their way across her dormitory, finding first her crimson drapes then stretching eagerly to devour the rest.

She took a minute. It was rare that she had anytime to herself these days, so she stole a moment; Hermione languidly stretched her legs, pointing her toes so they brushed the bedframe, and flexed her arms and fingers. A slow breath trickled from her lips, and she could taste the remnants of jasmine on her tongue.

Frowning, she retracted her limbs and sat up. Last night had been an odd one. For all her late night wanderings, she had never come across someone else- she’d never planned nor expected to. Least of all Malfoy. And yet…

Hermione pressed the base of her hands into her eyes so hard her skull ached in protestation. She couldn’t shake the image of him sitting alone against the wall, where even the shadows kept their distance. The bite in his voice she felt as though it was cutting into her skin with the cold.

_“I’m just my father’s son.”_

A small, frustrated growl tore from her throat and she kicked her blanket off and jumped to her feet.

Coming back to finish her eighth year had been a blessing and a curse. Admittedly, Hermione had very nearly declined the offer and twice, she had come close to owling McGonagall to change her mind even after accepting. The fact that Harry and Ron weren’t there to make her laugh and keep her from locking herself in the library was difficult for her to stomach. She had been subjected to the privilege of their company for seven years, had lived with them, had shared the same bed with them when they were on the run. They were a family, and they’d been through a lot together. To go back to nothing so suddenly was jarring.

Hermione often felt the loneliness manifest itself as a cold and numb weight in her chest. Though Ginny and Luna were in their seventh year, and Neville had returned too, she frequently felt out of the loop with them. They had bonded last year when continuing Dumbledore’s Army, and their shared resistance was like a golden thread tying them to one another. She found that everyone was like that.

Every person she looked at had some kind of string connecting them to someone else.

Hannah Abott returned and there was a red string tying her heart to Neville’s. Hermione had stumbled across them holding hands, faces close together, whispering as though the rest of the world had simply dropped away. She had found it difficult to look away at first, enthralled and taken off guard by the sheer innocence of the scene. Then, she had averted her eyes, and continued walking. The remaining teachers all had a grim, grey line connecting them; this one was fraying, and Hermione knew it was the terrible guilt that they had outlived many of their students. The sight of Colin Creevy’s mangled body, looking somehow tinier in death than he did in life, pervaded her mind more often than she’d like to admit. It hit her when she least expected it, when she was reading a book or copying down notes. Sometimes, Hermione felt like she was the only one in the school, the only one in the entire world, with no string at all.

Now she knew that wasn’t true, because Draco Malfoy had no strings too.

She had been surprised to see him in Hogwarts, despite the whispers that had leaked from compartment to compartment on the train. When she arrived, her heart had constricted and the thought of seeing the Great Hall, cleansed of the blood and bodies that had littered it when she’d last stood there, meant Hermione decidedly avoided it, opting to wander around the castle instead. As it had turned out, her feet took her to her one solace, untouched by the wrath of the world: the library. She strolled through the aisles, fingers brushing the spines of books she had committed to memory, and stopped.

The gleam of his white hair, no longer slicked back but loose and ruffled and falling into his eyes, caught her attention first. It was always what people noticed about him, perhaps because it was so traditionally _Malfoy_. Hermione always thought it was superficial to focus on his alabaster hair, and though she could admit his eyes had every so often left her breathless (for more unsavoury reasons than just because they were pretty), it was the wry smile that she looked for. It was rare, and she was never the cause of it though she couldn’t say it bothered her. She merely found it bizarre. It struck her when any semblance of human emotion was wrung from him, and she both longed for it and detested it because it made it simultaneously harder and easier to hate him.

And she did hate him. Hermione remembered the way his jaw had crunched under her knuckles, the sweeping fury of her fist, along with the burning feeling of abhorrence that writhed in her gut in Third Year. She thought it was a waste, how such beauty and intellect was wasted on the mindlessness racism and superiority he was fed as a child.

But she felt that hatred crumble when she saw him on September 1st for the first time since the Battle of Hogwarts because Draco Malfoy was not the same scathing, smirking boy she recalled him to be.

Where the air ignited around Harry and Ron, Hermione was always sure it dropped a few degrees when Draco Malfoy entered a room. It wasn’t so much that he was a cold person, more his countenance never held a flicker of warmth, and the inherited, marble like features of his face ensured he looked more like a statue, than a living human being. His lithe chest barely moved when he breathed, and his eyes would regard everything with an air of boredom and callous cruelty. He was impossibly tall, taller than even Ron was, with pale skin, never fused with blush, and blond hair that remained the only thing to be moved by outside influences when the wind threaded through it. But what really struck people were his eyes: two light and icy glaciers, more blue than the summer skies, enough to make even the sun freeze over. What really struck Hermione, however, was the complexity beneath the granite, the rush of blood beneath the paleness of his skin. She had seen him broken last night, and in some sick, twisted way, she wanted to see more. It made her feel less alone in her brokenness.

_“You aren’t to me.”_

She didn’t know what had made her say it. Hermione knew she was a pennant for wounded puppies and societal injustices, and though Draco Malfoy did not instantly appear to be either of those things, she did not regret the words. He needed to hear them, and truth be told, the Malfoy heir had ceased to be Lucius Malfoy’s Pureblood son the moment his aunt had dragged Hermione by the hair and demanded Draco confirm her identity and he’d grappled for a lie to save them a few precious seconds. The purple crescents under his eyes and the way his lips had tightened and pursed so he wouldn’t cry out or vomit when the word ‘Mudblood’ was being carved into her flesh were proof enough that this boy was not the same one she had known before the war.

She didn’t know who he was.

One of the few liberties of being an Eighth Year was the separate room that had been created at the top of the Gryffindor Girls dormitories, giving her both the House camaraderie that she loved and the solidarity she craved. Hermione collected her uniform from where it was piled neatly on her drawers. It was only when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, sighing at the bird’s nest her good night of sleep had left her with, that her eyes strayed to the clock on the wall and she swore.

She’d overslept.

And fuck, she had overslept massively.

She had missed all of her morning lessons. Hermione rushed to get dressed, and pack her bag for the afternoon, neglecting to drag a brush through her hair because really, what was the point? She shouldered her bag and shoved her curls into a bun to keep it out of her face and to prevent any birds from nesting in it should she have to venture outside.

Luckily, she would be in time for lunch, and her stomach ached for food. She skipped a glance in the mirror and left the room, flying down the stairs and out of the Portrait Hole. Appearances hardly mattered when you’d fought in a war and spent eleven months on the run.

Despite being back all of two weeks, Hermione still felt her feet move a little bit quicker as she walked past the double doors entrancing the Great Hall, and her breath came out in short pants at the din of chatter and clatter that escaped through the tiny slit in the wood. She’d taken to eating her meals in the kitchens, though it was much quieter down there with Dobby gone. That was not to say there had been a shortage of House Elves. Rather, quite the opposite as McGonagall had offered a job to all of the elves who had been in servitude to Death Eaters. Hermione still opposed the outdated serfdom but accepted that repaying the elves in gratitude and manners (which they had likely never experienced before if Lucius Malfoy’s treatment of Dobby was anything to go by) was still a success, no matter how small.

Winky greeted her as soon as she’d stepped foot in the kitchen, and the other House Elves stopped what they were doing to eagerly offer their services. They seemed to miss the act of personally waiting on an individual and it made Hermione uncomfortably pleased to know that she was easing their transition, ensuring no other elves descended into drink as Winky had done.

“Missus Hermione!” Winky chirped, taking her hand and leading her over to the small table they always kept set for her. There was already a cup of tea there. “Always on time, Miss. What can I get for Miss today?”

“Just the usual, please Winky,” replied Hermione, taking her seat and fixing the elf with a tired but grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Miss! Winky will get you it right away!”

The kitchens never failed to amaze her. They were yellow and warm, soaked in the transient light that drifted from tiny windows by the ceiling. The walls were lopsided golden bricks, and tall, maybe twice or three times the size of Hermione herself. Set deep into them were crates of food and barrels of beverages, and there were little sprigs of herbs and vegetables that grew from the cracks in abundance. There were little doors, the size of a House Elf, that led off to other smaller kitchens and the room under the Great Hall where the tables would appear for the food to be placed. It was homely down here, and always smelt of fresh bread and ginger. She would have to ask if they had any more jasmine.

She noticed the mug of tea in front of her was half full, and her hand hesitantly went to touch the ceramic. It was still warm.

“There you are.”

A voice startled her, and Hermione jumped to find Ginny staring at her. The redhead sat on the chair opposite and Winky squealed as she brought Hermione’s soup over for her, wiping her hands on her apron with the excitement of having another mouth to feed.

“Here is Miss Hermione’s soup! And Miss! What can Winky get you?”

Ginny smiled at the elf. “The same, please. If you have any leftover.”

Winky straightened up. “Yes, Miss! Always food here, Miss! And if not, we’s make more!”

Ginny’s eyes followed her right until she disappeared into one of the smaller rooms, before she turned back to Hermione.

“You’re an awfully difficult person to find,” she told her, amused.

Hermione took a sip of her soup. “That’s often the case when the person in question does not wish to be found.”

Ginny nodded, and she started to play with a sprig of rosemary that curled itself near her head. She said quietly, “Neville said you weren’t in Herbology this morning. And when I asked Hannah, she told me you weren’t in Potions either.”

“I overslept.”

“You overslept?” repeated Ginny, eyes narrowing slightly. Hermione nodded, silencing herself with another spoonful of soup. “Hermione, I say this because I love you, but you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

 _Try months_ , she wanted to say, but thought it wiser to keep her mouth shut.

Her friend’s face was pale with worry, and she dropped the herb she was twirling around her finger to hold Hermione’s free hand. “Is it-? Are you having nightmares?” asked Ginny tentatively. “Because if you are, there are potions for it. I know Madam Pomfrey has one that works a treat-”

“I’ve tried, Ginny,” Hermione admitted, eyes lowered to the steam billowing from her bowl, voice even lower. “They don’t work for me. I’ve tried them all.”

Ginny swallowed. “There has to be something-”

“Soup for Missus as well!” Winky appeared suddenly and Ginny, in her surprise, removed her hand from Hermione’s to retrieve the bowl.

“Thank you, Winky. You’re a star!”

The elf beamed then curtsied and left.

“There’s nothing. I’ve tried everything,” finished Hermione.

Ginny sealed her lips together so they formed a line. There was a slight frown between her eyebrows. “Well, maybe there’s nothing to help you sleep, but you can stop locking yourself away from us. We’re here for you, Mione. Luna, Neville and I. Even Hannah is worried-”

“Ginny, listen. Honestly, I’m _fine_ -”

“Is it because Harry and Ron aren’t here?”

“I-” Hermione cut off. Of course she missed them. When they weren’t by her side or nearby, she felt like she was missing a finger or a hand. They were an integral part to her, like any of her limbs, like the hairs on her head or her heart or her lungs. “No. I mean, it certainly doesn’t make things easier… but we needed our own way to grieve. We needed to move on with life.”

Ginny’s eyes were sharp when Hermione finally met them. She was always sharp, straight to the point and keen to make things as simple as possible. Hermione couldn’t decide whether simplicity was boring or cheating.

“And how’s that working for you?”

Hermione closed her mouth, holding the eye contact. She replied easily, “I think I’m getting back into the swing of things with my studies-”

Ginny laughed. “There are more things to life than studying, Hermione. How’s everything else?”

She finally looked away, licking her lips which had suddenly become very dry and helped herself to more of her soup. She wasn’t feeling very hungry anymore.

“Fine,” Hermione shrugged. The soup tasted like ash on her tongue. “Just fine.”

She wondered if you could use a word so wrongly that it would change its definition to suit your purpose. Surely, if you used it out of context enough. In that case, Hermione wasn’t fine at all. And she could not understand for the life in her why she insisted on lying to her best friend’s face when she’d cracked in front of Draco Malfoy. Perhaps it was because he knew exactly what it was like to be dragged right through the centre of hell and have no choice but to keep going. She often wondered if she’d ever get out. The image of the bright blue band of light trapped around Malfoy’s pale ankle flashed to the forefront of her mind’s eye, and she wondered if he would ever get out too, or if they’d both be trapped in hell together.


	3. Darkness

** Chapter Three **

He played with the coin. Staring absently at the stone wall across the room, he slipped the galleon between his fingers, relishing in the cold trail it made across his skin. His other arm was sprawled along the top of the bottle green, leather settee, his one leg folded across the other. If it had been any other time, he would have looked like a king lounging atop his throne; the hair on his head, the colour of sterile sunlight, was more telling than any crown with any number of jewels.

Draco frowned.

“You’re always moping,” a voice said from above him. Draco threw the coin high in the air, eyes following it, and Blaise Zabini caught it.

He was a tall and slim boy, with dark skin and dark eyes and lips that smiled like he perpetually knew something you didn’t and he held the information indefinitely against you. There was something warm about him though when he looked at you, black eyes sparkling, and Draco was more grateful than he let on that it was Blaise and not Crabbe and Goyle that kept him company nowadays.

“I don’t mope,” Draco drawled in protest.

Blaise scoffed, tossing him back his galleon and pushing his arm aside so he could sit down. Draco grudgingly let him. He noticed a small group of Third Years skirt past them, gaze glued to their toes, casting a twitching glance at the pair of them when a moment of foolish bravado washed through their small bodies then looking away just as quickly. Draco turned to Blaise. The other Slytherin was the only person in Hogwarts, the only person in the entire world, not including his mother, that could look him in the eye. Everybody else preferred to pretend that he didn’t exist, that he had died with the rest of the students, or been locked up with the rest of the Death Eaters.

It seemed everybody wanted something and nothing from him. His father had wanted him to take the mark, to follow in his footsteps and purge the Wizarding World of the inferior races. His mother wanted him to be safe. His aunt wanted him to kill. His friends wanted him to be strong and his enemies wanted him to be weak. His teachers wanted him to pull up his socks and get back on track.

Blaise just wanted him to stop moping.

“You do,” he said smoothly, “and you did before.”

Draco shot him a look, which Blaise caught and disregarded instantly.

“If I wanted to be talked at and insulted, I would have gone to Azkaban with my father,” he told him, and he heard the way his voice dropped and the shame crept in but ignored it.

Blaise ignored it too.

“There’s still time for that, don’t worry,” he replied, stretching his arms along the back of the sofa. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and Draco’s eyes lingered on the exposed, clean skin there, feeling his own forearm burn. “Maybe you’ll get the best of both worlds.”

Draco took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment and squeezing the cold coin so all of the sharp edges dug into the palm of his hand. If it had been anyone else who’d said that to him, he’d have hexed them so hard it would have propelled him straight into the cell beside his father’s. Luckily, it was Blaise, and unluckily, there was a semblance of truth behind his words.

“How is all of that going, anyway?” asked Blaise, in a lower voice. His jaw was clenched and Draco could see the worry lurking in the frown nestling between his friend’s eyebrows. “Have there been any new developments?”

“No.”

Draco shifted subconsciously, putting both of his feet flat on the floor, and dragging his ankle against the chair leg. He added, almost as an afterthought, “I have the date of my trial.”

Blaise shot up in his seat. He stared at him as though he had grown a second head, and Draco mustered up all the strength in his body to meet his gaze dead-on.

“That’s a pretty crucial, fucking development, Draco,” his friend hissed. “Why didn’t you tell me-?”

“Oh, please, Blaise,” Draco rolled his eyes. “You’re not my mother.”

“I might as well be!” fumed Blaise, and he moved closer, eyes wide and persistent. He seemed to realise he was making a scene, however, when a few other students glanced over, and licked his lips, rolling his shoulders back and lowering his voice to a careful murmur. “You’re ruining yourself, Draco. You don’t eat, you’re barely keeping up in class and don’t think I haven’t noticed you sneaking off every night to Merlin knows where!”

 _Yes_ , Draco thought. _Merlin, and a certain know-it-all Gryffindor._

It had been a… surprise last night, when Hermione Granger, draped in a sickly crimson blanket, appeared from the shadows and sat down beside him. It had been even more surprising when she had started a civil conversation with him as though they were old friends. He scratched at his neck, closing his eyes and leaning his head back.

There had been something in her wide, innocent eyes when she had asked him if he was okay, something he hadn’t thought he would ever see again. He didn’t truly believe he deserved the concern that she had shown him, nor the slow trickle of honesty that had dribbled from her lips-

“Draco? Are you even fucking listening to me?”

“No,” he replied, getting to his feet and striding away, down the stairs to the boys dormitory, locking himself in his room and making sure he slammed the door hard enough so Blaise could hear it in the Common Room. He wouldn’t follow him. He wouldn’t stoop to such a low and desperate level. He also wouldn’t have a chance of guessing Draco’s password.

Draco paced, hands raking through his hair, scraping it back from his face. There was a thin line of sweat tracing his forehead and he rubbed at it, willing it to dry. His heart was racing in his chest and the emerald walls that had always been so comforting to him felt confining and crushing. His dormitory, being right at the very bottom of the dungeons, wasn’t quite as dark and wet as one might expect it to be. The stone walls were smooth, and there were two pillars towering at the foot of his four-poster bed, serpent like marble twined round them both. Emerald bedding and chairs matched the sweeping drapes that hung from the ceiling, and Draco only stopped his pacing when a Grindylow swam past his window. Another reason he’d always loved being in Slytherin was the lake. In his room, stretching from ceiling to floor, in place of a wall, was a large piece of glass, framing the floor of the Black Lake and casting his room in a bluish-green glow.

Draco moved closer to it. He couldn’t see very far, as the water was murky and descended into greyness, but he could see the way the weeds waved in the current and occasionally, a fish or Kappa or even a Merperson would swim by, taunting him with their freedom.

_Damn this school!_

His preliminary trial had decreed that, pending sentence, it would be best for him to return to Hogwarts. Whether it was truly for his ‘safety,’ or for the safety of the rest of the world, Draco doubted he would ever find out. It seemed more likely that in waiting to lock him up in one place for good, they decided it was best for everyone if he was locked up in another for the time being.

The school that had always been his home was now his prison. He felt the walls closing in on him with every step he took, inching closer and closer. It was only a matter of time before they suffocated him completely, squeezed the life from his weak body and spilled the blood that had always been important to him all over the floor.

Draco screwed his eyes shut, and punched the glass, resting his forehead on the place his fist had made warm. His breath escaped him in a shaking rush of air.

This wasn’t the life he had chosen. It wasn’t the one he deserved, and trust him, he deserved a lot of bad for the shitty things he’d done. But _not this._

He hadn’t wanted to take the mark. Draco remembered the night it had happened so vividly he could still smell the burning of his flesh. The sight of his body disgusted him. He had always been proud of it, of the wiry muscles that came from training on the Quidditch pitch every day, and the untouched whiteness of his skin. Now, he could barely stand to glance at it in the mirror. His torso had been marked with so many scars and bruises that had yet to heal because he refused to let his mother put balm on them. His right arm had been broken twice during the war and he had gritted his teeth and let it heal the Muggle way because he knew he deserved the pain of it. It still wasn’t right, and ached every now and then if he put too much pressure on his elbow. There was a snake-like constriction around his waist, where Nagini had coiled about him in his Sixth Year when the Dark Lord feared he wasn’t taking his mission seriously enough. Needless to say, it made him work harder than before on fixing the cabinet and he had it done within the month.

Sometimes, Draco awoke to the same heaviness on his chest, wrapping around his body, squeezing him firmly-

He let out an anguished whimper, banging his head against the glass and clenching his eyes shut tighter. It was like he was staring into a void, and only the darkness heard the way the desperation caught in his throat.

_“Not to me.”_

The darkness, and Hermione Granger. But she noticed everything.

**oOo**

He didn’t know what made him do it, what in Merlin’s name had him waking up at an atrociously early hour, and what part of his generally rational brain thought that going for a walk in the middle of the night, knowing full well that Ganger could be walking in the opposite direction, was a better idea than staring at the lake bed like he usually did for hours until he passed out from exhaustion.

Even so, Draco found himself walking along the corridor, the cold stone digging into his feet, his heart feeling traitorously light in the heaviness of his chest. He stopped when he got to the same place he’d been sitting in yesterday, casting a sweeping glance up and the down the hall before he sighed and dropped to the floor.

He didn’t know for how long he sat there, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes closed, only that he was almost drifting off when he heard her.

She had somehow rounded the corner in silence, though he heard her soft footsteps nevertheless. Draco pretended he wasn’t relieved that she was here. Granger crept closer to him, sitting beside him. There was the same amount of space between them as there had been the night before, but the distance felt less somehow.

“The jasmine tea worked,” she told him quietly, shifting the blanket so that her hands had something to do and her eyes had somewhere to look. “I suppose I should thank you for that.”

He didn’t really acknowledge her presence, nor what she’d said at all for a solid few minutes. Then, Draco said, “Then why are you here?”

Granger frowned. “Excuse me?”

Draco had to hold back a growl, but he couldn’t stop the frustrated exhalation of air from leaving his nose. He repeated impatiently, “If it helps you sleep, why aren’t you sleeping?”

“The same reason you came back to this exact spot despite it having been compromised.”

He knew she was taking a stab in the dark, and though the words didn’t find their mark, they were a blow nevertheless. Instead of showing it and giving her the satisfaction, he let out a harsh laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself, Granger. You’ve hardly compromised this place for me.”

She huffed in annoyance and he almost laughed for real. Draco leaned his head back against the wall, craning his head so far back it was parallel with the ceiling and closing his eyes. She didn’t speak for a while and he expected her to have silently slipped away, but when he heard a rustle of movement and he looked down, Draco found her sitting next to him still. He frowned, though schooled his features into nonchalance quickly after.

“Why this spot in particular?” asked Granger. He nearly didn’t hear her, and had to stop himself before he leaned closer just to catch what she was saying. She was so damn quiet, like some sort of startled mouse, and it irked him because he knew she could scream and yell and moan for bloody Morgana herself.

“Speak up, will you Granger,” he retorted senselessly. “No one is awake to hear you make a racket.”

Draco felt the heat on his neck when she glowered at him, and he hated the small smirk that curled his lips. It was the first bit of warmth he’d felt in years.

“Why-” she began in a much louder voice, though dropped the volume when the word echoed down the corridor, firing back at the pair of them as to why they were sitting there, entertaining one another at all.

 _Why indeed_ , Draco questioned drolly.

“-here?” she finished, almost lamely. “Why here?”

He opened his eyes at that point, tilting his chin down and let his gaze peruse the hallway with the same curiosity he felt in the witch beside him. “I don’t know,” he answered, and the honesty with which he replied surprised them both. “I just started walking and stopped at the first place I didn’t remember. Nothing has happened along this corridor. Not to me anyway.”

“Nor me,” Granger offered quietly.

They sat in silence for a few moments, and the serenity was fractured by the steady, alternating sounds of their collective breathing.

“This castle is haunted for me now.”

He didn’t know why she had told him that, and he doubted she did either. All he knew was it made his gut coil with the same uncertainty and discomfort he had felt yesterday when she’d told him he wasn’t his father’s son to her.

“Is that why you eat in the kitchens?” he asked.

Granger looked at him in surprise and Draco scoffed and said, “I don’t follow you.”

She remained unconvinced, though he hardly had the patience nor energy to appease her.

Luckily, it was Granger who changed the subject. “Where did you learn about the jasmine?”

His eyes dropped to his feet, but the blue light around his ankle made him cringe so he looked away from her, down the corridor. “My mother used to make it for me when I was ill. It was the only housework she ever did.”

Granger was quiet again. Their conversations were predominantly silences, interrupted only by tentative questions and moments of bitter honesty that had them both thankful nobody else was listening. She said, “She loves you a lot, doesn’t she? Your mother.”

Draco shifted and he said, only to avoid saying anything else, “Every mother loves their child, Granger.”

She hummed but didn’t comment. Draco swallowed, itching to ask something that had been nagging at him since her arrival. He gritted his teeth to try and keep it in but the question escaped him anyway, curiosity trumping whatever morsel of dignity he had left. Realistically, he knew he’d sacrificed that when he climbed out of bed and wandered the slumbering corridors, hoping their paths would cross once more.

“What did you mean by the same reason I was here?”

Granger paused. There was a scuffle between her brain and her tongue and he didn’t think he’d ever see her hesitate an answer, but it took her a moment to say, “I thought that much was obvious. It’s different with you. I don’t feel like I have to hide how terribly not-fine I am.”

Draco couldn’t stop himself from looking at her, though he knew the eye contact was probably a bad idea. There was something that possessed him to lie to her, to curl his lip like he used to and _lie_.

“I’m fine,” he snarled.

She looked at him with that all-knowing look that used to drive him crazy and he felt his resolve crack and crumble in his gut, wondering furiously why he thought any of this was a good idea.

“Draco,” she murmured sadly, and he couldn’t stand the pity in her voice.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that, Granger. And stop calling me Draco,” he hissed. “We’re not friends.”

A muscle twitched in Granger’s jaw. “No,” she conceded and he felt a twinge of guilt for the way her voice trembled. “But I thought maybe we could be decent human beings in a world where they seem scarce.”

Draco pursed his lips together and stared adamantly ahead. Despite the fact that the air now crackled between them, neither one of them seemed willing to move, though Draco longed to get up and stalk back to his dormitory and never have to face the pressing reality of Hermione Granger. His legs refused to move, however, and he found himself frozen to the spot, incapacitated by the uncertainty she seemed to strike in him. His eyes ventured everywhere but _her,_ and he stopped when he noticed the blue light peeking out from his pyjama bottoms.

“I’m not fine,” he said reluctantly, frowning at the band around his ankle. “I’m fucking terrified, Granger.”

She looked at him, and her eyes, concerned and brimming with unbridled feeling, scorched his bare skin. He rubbed at his neck and cheek, trying to protect himself. Draco closed his eyes, breath rushing shakily from his lips.

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“It's okay to be lost every now and then, Malfoy,” whispered Granger, leaning closer so that he had no choice but to look at her. She was insistent and unbearably truthful and it both reassured and _killed_ him. He found he missed the sound of his name on her lips, “just so long as you let yourself be found when the time comes.”

Not another word was spoken between them that night, but they both remained there for maybe twenty minutes more, basking in the unusual quietness one brought to the other and wondering how it was only when they were sitting next to one another that their minds would finally cease their chatter. And then they left. Draco left first this time, but he heard Hermione’s voice echo in his head until the sunlight touched the bottom of the lake and his room was set alight with yellow.


	4. The Abyss and Granger

** Chapter Four- The Abyss and Granger **

 

He was in a bad mood. A really fucking sour mood.

It must have radiated from him, rolling like waves from the snarl of his lips and the hood of his eyes, because everyone he passed on his way to breakfast took one look at him and moved quickly out of his way. They ducked their heads, though their submission was counteracted by the trail of whispers their brashness allowed. Draco angled a glare at a particularly bold Gryffindor who didn’t even bother to lower her voice when she used ‘Malfoy’ and ‘Death Eater’ in the same sentence.

It wasn’t like she was wrong, but he didn’t need the fucking reminder.

He didn’t have his bag because lessons hardly mattered now. Blaise would slip him a quill and some paper when the professor wasn’t looking, and Draco would take notes only after five minutes of stewing furiously and a laborious sigh because his head was starting to burn due to the heat of his friend’s glare. Although he had always been a good student (never as good as Granger, he thought bitterly), he could only question what the point was. What was the point in trying to haul himself back on track when in less than four months it could be too late?

Blaise hadn’t brought up his trial again. Draco was secretly relieved at his friend’s tact, but part of him wished that Blaise would care less. He ostracised himself when he was seen with him, and Draco was well aware that convivial conversation died when he entered a room. He’d also noticed that Blaise would fill both his own and Draco’s plate with food to make sure he was eating. It was part of the reason Draco had taken to having some of his meals in the kitchen.

He didn’t want Blaise getting attached. Not if he wasn’t going to be here for much longer.

But he also knew Granger ate in the kitchens too, and right now, Blaise was the lesser of the two annoyances.

He wondered what her reasons were.

The Great Hall was alive with chatter. The owls had just swooped in and they pecked at the fingers of their recipients, vying for food or payment. Draco found himself drawn to the open window that allowed them access. He wished it was that simple to just take off, into the September skies and never have to stop or look back, to just disappear into the clouds. The din of morning excitement withered away and he was painfully aware of the silence, and the hundreds of eyes that turned to stare before relocating rapidly.

Draco found it worsened his mood considerably.

He skulked over to the Slytherin table, and when Blaise moved along the bench to let him sit down, he obliged, not having the effort or energy to fight him this morning. His heart dropped with his body as he slipped in beside Blaise, shoulders deflating, head pounding. He didn’t even argue when Blaise began putting bacon and toast on his plate.

“Do you like black pudding?” Blaise asked nonchalantly.

Draco didn’t reply. His eyes stung because he’d hardly slept, and he felt like the world was falling away at his feet.

“I’m going to take that as a no,” said Blaise. “You’re having some beans though. They’re good for your heart.”

“I’m going to Madam Pomfrey after Transfiguration,” muttered Draco, and Blaise looked at him in surprise. “I haven’t been sleeping.”

Momentarily struck by this change in his friend, Blaise was silent before he said, “Okay. Good. That’s good. She can give you a potion for it.”

“Yeah.”

He pretended he was doing it for himself, and he allowed Blaise to feel as though he was trying to get back on track. In reality, it was because he didn’t think he could face Hermione Granger.

Almost absently, his gaze trailed the table on the far side of the hall, looking for her bushy bird’s nest, seeking out her tired eyes. Draco didn’t know what it was, what kept drawing him back to her. He had once longed to see her broken, to see her grappling and disorientated because she was always the one holding everything and everyone else together.

He remembered their second year, seeing her sprawled and seized up on the hospital bed. Draco had to admit he’d been curious. She’d been a tiny thing, filled to bursting with self-righteousness and the silly ignorance she used to delude herself with about a dark world she was a stranger to. He heard the whispers- _Potter’s Mudblood has been petrified_. That was when he knew it wasn’t Potter. He’d doubted it highly anyway because a Gryffindor (especially one as bloody stupid and brash as _Potter_ ) could never be Slytherin’s heir, but Draco wanted to see what Granger looked like when she was inches away from death.

As it turned out, she looked no different. Apart from the pallid waxiness of her face, the unseeing gaze of her wide eyes and the fact that her mouth was shut and silent for once, he thought she looked the same. It unnerved him more, though he’d never admit it. She wasn’t supposed to be broken. She was meant to be spitting and fighting until the end.

This wasn’t the end for Granger. He didn’t know how he knew it, but Draco hadn’t felt so sure of anything in his entire life.

That was why he needed to sleep. If he didn’t sleep, his mind would wander and for some bizarre and fucking annoying reason, it would always wander back to her. He didn’t like to see her broken. It made him ponder on how absolutely beyond fixing he was in comparison.

“I’m going to go to class,” he murmured, feeling his skin crawl like he was on fire, pushing the bench back so he could escape. It was so hot.

Blaise frowned at him. “You haven’t touched your bacon.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Draco-“

He sped up so he wouldn’t have to face a confrontation with his friend. As soon as he’d burst through the doors, and the stifling air relinquished its clutches on him, he let out a shaky breath.

Walls felt confining nowadays. If he sat in the same place for too long, they would start to close in on him, squeezing his ribs, sucking the light from the world. When the wind picked up and snaked around his neck, Draco swore he felt the Dementors reach out for him-

He stopped. Running his hands over his face and through his hair to try to get a grip, he shook himself and turned on his heel. He might as well actually go to class. There was nowhere else in the world he needed to be. Not now. Not ever.

He didn’t get very far however.

“Death Eater!” Draco felt the name stab into him, but he continued walking. “Merlin, it’s a wonder they ever let war criminals back into the school. You’d think they’d send them straight to Azkaban-”

The heat exploded within him, writhing fury, coiling frustration, and he whirled around. The group were maybe fifth years, with various coloured ties but he saw red.

“Are you talking to me?” Draco gritted out.

The tallest, a smug boy with sickening grin and squinting eyes, who Draco associated with the name Hamelin for some reason, raised his eyebrows. “Well, you’re the only Death Eater here, aren’t you?”

Draco could feel the tension in the air. He could feel the brewing storm. After living his life for that, with no breaks of sunshine for so long, he knew the moment a situation changed. It was when his hairs stood on end in anticipation and every bone in his body braced itself for impact.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wouldn’t rise to it.

“What do you want?” he asked, fixing them with a bored glance.

The Ravenclaw, Hamelin, pushed himself off the wall and stalked towards him. Draco didn’t move as he came nose to nose with him. He could feel the heat of the other boy’s breath, see every flicker beneath his skin. There was a twitch in his jaw, an unpredictability in his eyes; he was fuming, bubbling over with something poisonous and livid. Draco recognised it. He didn’t square up, just watched him through hooded eyes.

“I want you to pay,” the boy said in a low voice. He was trembling, something Draco was sure his friends couldn’t see.

He knew he was playing with fire, but he asked in a cold voice, “For what?”

“ _My brother_ ,” Hamelin spat. A vein pulsed in his head.

Draco’s eyes darted over his shoulder. They had accumulated a small crowd. He swallowed. They stood with wide eyes, held breaths, debilitated with the expectation of what would happen next. He knew what they were waiting for.

He’d give it them. He’d be the villain they so desperately wanted him to be.

“And what did I do to your brother?” he drawled.

Hamelin’s entire face changed. It twisted into agony. “They _killed_ him!” he stressed, almost crying out.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” said Draco, flicking his eyes away.

His dark eyes were red and wet, and he drew in a shuddering breath, surveying Draco as though he wanted to kill him. “ _Your lot._ Your friends, your father, your sick, fucking leader. I don’t know. You could’ve done it yourself, Malfoy.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Draco quickly said. He looked Hamelin dead in the eye. “You all would. Would it make it easier if I told you I did it?”

That was all he needed to hear. Hamelin reared back and punched him, fist colliding with his cheekbone and all Draco could hear was the crunch of the bones in his face, splintering awfully in his ear. He stumbled backwards. Vaguely, he could hear the gasps of the crowd and even some cheers, but they were soon drowned out by the rush of blood to his head.

Hamelin punched him again as soon as he’d regained balance, and he felt the cold, hard impact of the floor. The world spun a little. It wasn’t much, compared to what he’d been through, but he still felt weak.

“Why aren’t you fighting back, Malfoy?” Hamelin asked, almost deploringly, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his robe. When Draco didn’t stir, he kicked him in the ribs. “Why won’t you fight? Fight for yourself, you piece of shit!”

Draco felt each kick but he was numb to it. He rolled over and took it, thinking he deserved so much worse. His ribs felt to fracture, jarring in his body and ripping into his heart and lungs. Each breath was painful, and when he coughed, a splatter of blood stained the floor.

Hamelin knelt down beside him. He was crying, taking huge raking breaths. Drawing his face close, he said, desperate and devastated beyond description, “This is for my brother. It’s for everyone who you’ve hurt. Everything you touch _breaks_.”

Draco didn’t even react. Hamelin inhaled sharply, recoiling, and he grabbed Draco’s arm, ripping his sleeve from his skin. There was a hiss of fear, a ripple of disgust, and Draco felt his Dark Mark burn. He finally acted. He rolled away slightly, pulling his arm back and punching the other boy hard in the nose. He knew it was hard because his knuckles stung and it was enough to take his mind off the pain that was imploding everywhere else.

Hamelin fell backwards, skidding away from the force of the hit. Draco knew he’d just made it worse, and he relaxed into the stone floor, welcoming the cold that seeped into his skin.

Nobody tried to stop Hamelin, not as he scrambled furiously to his feet, storming back over and bringing his foot down squarely on Draco’s face. He could feel the blood explode from his nose, and his tooth cut into his lip. He thought he saw stars, and maybe his mother’s face, and why the fuck could he hear Granger’s voice?

He thought it might be his conscience berating him, calling him a coward and an idiot and everything between and beyond, but then he felt hands on him, warm ones, and the world resumed. Everything came back tenfold, and Draco felt like a gasping infant, birthed from turmoil and fury, squinting in the painful brightness of a world that was unfamiliar to him.

“-stupid, _stupid_ boys!” a voice was saying. It sounded stressed, upset, frantic.

“He deserves it, Granger. You know he does-”

_“This isn’t war!”_

Granger’s voice echoed loudly and despairingly along the corridor. It came from somewhere very close to him, and Draco suspected it was her warm hands that were sending heat through his body. He realised she was shielding his forearm from view. He tried to move away from her, rolling onto his stomach in an attempt to crawl, but she held him fast and he had no effort to try again.

“I didn’t put everything on the line in a war for you to perpetuate violence and anger,” she said, distress making her voice tremble and high. “Hamelin, your brother wouldn’t have wanted this-”

“Don’t you dare tell me what he would’ve wanted, Granger,” countered Hamelin defiantly. “Look at his mark, Granger! Why are you defending him? His type tried to kill you. They killed Linus-”

“You’re just grieving!” she shouted at him. The silence bounced back, cracking her voice. “We’re all grieving but that doesn’t mean we turn on each other. We won because we prioritise love and friendship, not hatred.”

Draco tilted his head slightly so he could watch her through his hair. She was crying silently, chest heaving. “We’re just children. We shouldn’t be fighting like this. We shouldn’t have to grieve. Now, get to class, all of you. Go!”

“And 100 points from Ravenclaw,” added a cool voice. Draco glanced behind Granger and saw the Weasley girl. She stood tall, arms folded across her chest, Head Girl badge glinting from her robe. With even more aloofness, she said, “And a further 50 from everybody watching.”

Draco lowered his eyes to the floor. He wanted to get away from here. He wanted the ground to swallow him whole. He wanted to die-

There was a scuffle of hesitation, before the crowd dispersed, too chastised and ashamed to properly argue over such a heavy penalty. The group of Hamelin’s friends grabbed his arm to steer him to their lesson.

“You belong in Azkaban, Malfoy,” Hamelin said finally, resisting his friends for only a moment before they dragged him away. There was no bite in his voice, just dejection, and Draco tried to kick out his legs to see if he still had control of them, feeling each one of their footsteps pound within his skull. He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the high ceilings, and the beams swung, and the sunlight seemed to do pirouettes and twirls above his head.

Every bone in his body _hurt._ He ached as though he was hollow and there was nothing left.

Now, it was just him, and the pain, and Granger and Weasley.

“Hermione-” Weasley began, reaching for her friend.

Granger swallowed, and there was a hardness to her face which lasted just a second, before she turned her chin half towards the other girl to say, “Go to class, Ginny. I’ll take him to the Hospital Wing.”

“But-”

“You need your NEWT’s more than I do,” she reasoned.

Weasley hesitated, but then she squeezed Granger’s shoulder, cast Draco less than half a glance, and left.

Granger remained sitting there for a moment, staring into space, before she turned to look at him. She realised she was still holding his arm and dropped her hands.

“It was very stupid of you to provoke him like that,” she said. She sounded stronger than before, but he could hear the cracks.

Draco forced himself to sit up, slowly pushing off against the cold floor, and biting back his winces when he felt his ribs dig into his flesh. He coughed, spitting out the blood that had collected in his mouth and grimacing at the metallic taste it left.

“Did you enjoy the show?” he asked, her comment smarting a little.

Granger frowned. “I didn’t see it. I was on my way to class when I saw some Third Years run past, talking about a fight. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was probably you, since nobody else is stupid enough to start a fight-”

“Don’t fucking patronise me, Granger.”

“-and then I saw that I was right, and someone told me that you’d killed Hamelin’s brother,” she finished, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. She stared at him, with pursed lips. “Did you?”

He glared at her. “Did I what?”

“Did you kill his brother?”

Draco climbed to his feet, ignoring the flash of agony that jolted through him. “No,” he said. “I didn’t even know he had a brother.”

Granger remained kneeled on the floor. “Then why did you say you did?”

Why wouldn’t she fucking shut up? He wanted to drop the subject entirely and walk away, but he knew that he’d collapse if he tried. He wouldn’t be able to get anywhere without her help. Even so, his skin crawled with her interrogation. He wanted to bang his head against the stone so hard his ears would bleed and he wouldn’t have to listen to her or answer her stupid questions.

“I don’t know, Granger,” he spat. “They wanted a villain. It’s the least I can do to give them one.”

She was silent. Draco wondered if she’d slipped away because he hadn’t looked at her since she’d asked him. But then-

“Are you alright, Malfoy?” Granger asked him seriously. The concern leaked into the air.

He wanted to be honest with her. He didn’t know why because he wasn’t one to talk about his feelings, but there was a balloon swelling in his chest and he thought that if he didn’t let some air out, it would pop and he would shatter or deflate, and Draco so desperately wanted to tell her. He was breaking. He was being swallowed by the abyss and she was standing above him, reaching her hand out, hearing the way life caught in his throat and locked his joints and silenced every scream and cry for help.

He was just too damn proud to take it.

“I don’t need you, Granger,” he snarled at her, wiping his mouth roughly against the back of his hand. The blood smeared startlingly red against the blue of his veins. He pretended he didn’t notice. “You’re not my keeper!”

She bristled at that. It had been so long since he’d seen her all riled up, eyes aflame, hair catching the static of the moment. She looked a bit like the old Granger.

“I know, Malfoy,” she replied through gritted teeth. “I just thought you looked rather pitiful getting the shit beaten out of you and wanted to offer my help. Clearly, it wasn’t wanted.”

He knew he was being a dick but her words still stung. He’d provoked her to such a reaction but he wanted her to defend him more, to tell him in that bossy voice of hers that left no room for debate that he had to fight for himself because nobody else was going to do it.

Instead, he ducked his head and muttered, “It wasn’t needed.”

Granger looked at him. Then, she let out a surprising laugh and said derisively, “Of course it wasn’t. Well, Malfoy, when you decide to pull your head out of your arse, I’ll be waiting. But until then, I’m going to class.”

She stood up and turned her back on him. She had a gift. Draco was sure of it. It was like every single word that came out of her mouth was targeted to rub him up the wrong way, to nestle beneath his skin and prick. The flare of anger reared its ugly head inside of his gut and he stormed closer to her, backing her into the wall.

He’d never been this close to her. Not even when they sat side by side on the cold, stone floor, soaking in the same moonlight. Granger looked worse up close.

There were purple crescents under her eyes and her skin was waxy, stretched taut over her skull. Her hair hadn’t been brushed in days, but Draco had always wondered if she’d even owned a hairbrush so that shouldn’t have shocked him as much as it did. She had no resolve in her eyes. They were empty.

He pushed down the unease that settled deep within him at that revelation, and leaned his face closer to hers.

“You don’t get to speak to me like that, Granger,” he growled menacingly. “I don’t know who you think you are. You have no idea _what_ I’m going through. Even if you hopped down from your little war hero pedestal, you couldn’t possibly imagine how fucking wrecked I am.”

She pushed herself up so she could look him directly in the eye, chin tilted high to the ceiling, voice biting but something in her eyes made him think that she was wounded. “Have I not shown you I’m wrecked too?”

“Your biggest fear is failing a fucking class, Granger!" Draco stressed, his voice bordering on a shout. It was strained, sounding like his throat was tearing to allow the words to pass. It was too raw, too unprotected. He seemed to realise this for he adopted his sneer, though it lacked the usual malice. "Forgive me for not taking your anguish very seriously."

Granger stared at him, eyes hard, jaw clenched. She said quietly, without looking away, "Yes. And my best friend had been marked for death since he was a baby. My parents are currently in Australia with no knowledge that they have a daughter and I don’t know if they will ever get that knowledge back. Every time I close my eyes, I see people fighting and dying. So don't act like your problems are bigger than everyone else's, or like they make you bigger, because that's not how this works.”

Draco just stared at her. He was well aware of the blood pounding to his head and the fact that Blaise would probably kill him for being late to class, especially as he’d set off early, but he couldn’t find the energy to care about any of that. He swallowed thickly.

“You erased their memories,” was all he said. He blinked. “I didn’t know about that. I’m sorry.”

Granger looked surprised she had let such a damning part of her grief slip, and she frowned at the floor. “I didn’t have a choice. It was their lives or me.

“I’m not asking that you let me in, Malfoy,” she continued quietly. He screwed his eyes shut to try and block her out. “I just want you to know that you’re not going through this darkness alone. All differences aside, I can see when someone is grieving, and it pains me to see you driven so close to the edge-”

“Don’t kid yourself, Granger. Nobody cares about me. They all know how my story ends.”

Her hand was cool on the searing heat of his skin and it jolted him so he had no choice but to look at her. She shook her head and said insistently, “Nothing is written in stone, Malfoy. If you want something, truly want it, you need to fight for it. No one can save you if you’re not willing to save yourself.”

Draco looked into her eyes, so persistent and concerned, and he thought, maybe he believed her. Maybe there was still time left for him. Maybe, as he felt the pressure of her hands, and the shaky heat of her breath, and the morning light readied the day for salvation, he wouldn’t have to do it alone.

“Granger,” he began, swallowing, choking on the words. She nodded expectantly, and Draco floundered for something to give her, but he couldn’t say what he wanted her to know. He was in too much pain and it was too much to ask of her and too much of himself to give away- “Can you please take me to the Hospital Wing?”

 


	5. Medicine

** Chapter Five- Medicine **

Hermione took him to the Hospital Wing immediately. She wrapped her arm around his waist and though he was narrow and lithe, he was heavy, leaning his weight into her, chaining them together in a slow, dragging stumble.

She could hear every hiss of pain and ragged breath in her ear, and the heat of each sigh on her cheek. Malfoy was uncommonly warm. Or maybe she was just burning. Either way, the journey across the school was one made in scorching silence.

Vaguely, she thought she could use magic to make him lighter, or even to levitate him completely. He clung to her so tightly though, his hand bunched into the material of her shirt, that she couldn’t let him go. If she let him go, Hermione thought, he’d fall and never stop falling.

They burst through the Hospital Wing doors, and Madam Pomfrey immediately appeared from her office, her usual indignant self, proclaiming, “Oh honestly, Mr Collier, if that’s you again-“ but the chastisement died on her lips when she caught sight of Malfoy.

“Mr Malfoy,” she said. Then, she snapped her mouth shut at the sorry state of him and assumed her professionalism once more. “Miss Granger, if you could get him onto a bed.”

She bustled over, helping Hermione lift Malfoy onto the bed, muttering at him when he snapped at her. Then, she tapped his shoulder with her wand, and his shoes unlaced themselves from his feet, flying to the floor, and his shirt vanished, reappearing over the back of the chair. Hermione might have blushed, but her jaw slackened and she could only stare at him. The smooth expanse of Malfoy’s chest was pale and lean, clinging tight to his collarbones, faintly outlining muscles he’d no doubt acquired through the hours of Quidditch Practise accumulated over the years-

And yet, all of it was marred. He had bruises of purple and blue, fresh and dark, and older ones that had already started going yellow, spread across his body, disappearing under the waistline of his trousers, curving around his waist. They were ugly and garish against the whiteness of his skin, sickeningly stark. Small cuts scattered over the swell of his ribs, which had hollowed out, almost like he’d starved himself. Running the length of his torso, from the gasping valley of his throat to his bellybutton, was a thick, red scar. It was somehow worse to look at than his Dark Mark. It glistened in the sunlight. Hermione couldn’t look away.

“Broken ribs,” Madam Pomfrey was murmuring. She’d summoned potions and a bowl of water and flannel to the bedside table. As if she had just remembered Hermione was still there, the nurse lifted her head and said, “Miss Granger, get a flannel and clean up his face, please.”

Hermione hesitated. Even Malfoy seized up at the command. Despite her reservations, she rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and took the wet flannel, squeezing it over the basin. Gingerly, with shaking hands, she pressed it against the corner of his lip. Hamelin had punched him so hard that his lip had split in two places. Malfoy wrenched his face away from her.

He stubbornly stared at the wall. Hermione swallowed. She dabbed at his cheek, where the blood had dried, but he turned his head further away, deeper into the pillow. She took his chin and forcibly, but gently, pulled it back to face her, wiping at his mouth, ignoring the way he winced and glared at her.

“Swallow your pride,” she muttered to him.

Malfoy neglected to reply, but his jaw tightened under her fingers. His blue gaze remained fixed on her. She could see the waxiness of his cheeks, the sleepless moons under his eyes. Hermione cleaned him up best she could but whilst the blood disappeared, the grey remained, permeating into every part of him, draining him of his life. Madam Pomfrey coaxed him into drinking a number of potions, running her wand over his jutting ribs to heal him. He laid on the bed at the end of it, sinking into the whiteness of the sheets. Hermione had never seen him look so fragile.

“He needs to rest,” Madam Pomfrey told her, flipping her wrist and the potions went flying back to her office.

Malfoy scowled. “I’m not a child. You needn’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

“Overnight?” asked Hermione, folding her arms across her chest. Malfoy redirected his glare.

“His body is weak,” explained the nurse. “Even if he wasn’t as feeble as he is, I’d keep him at least one night, just to give his ribs chance to heal. But-” she broke off, casting a look at her disgruntled patient before beckoning Hermione away. Malfoy rolled his eyes, making a comment that was lost on them. Her voice lowered. “Miss Granger, the boy hasn’t been sleeping. He’s clearly not eating. He’s even rejecting some of the potions. It’s almost like- it’s almost like his body has given up.”

Hermione swallowed thickly. She stared at her feet, arms still wrapped around her waist, hugging herself. “I can stay with him, if you think that will help.”

The nurse sighed, and the sound was heavy and helpless enough to draw Hermione’s eyes to the older woman. The lines in her face were deep, almost pained. “Miss Granger… I’m not sure what will help. I can heal his physical wounds, but the wounds of the mind are out of my control.”

She rested a hand on Hermione’s shoulder. “I can’t promise he’ll be alright, but if you stay with him, you can at least stop him from throwing up the medicine.”

Hermione grimaced, and Madam Pomfrey squeezed her arm before sending a final warning look at Malfoy. “Behave, Mr Malfoy,” she said sternly. “I’ll dismiss you when you’re well enough but until then, you’re to stay here. Understand?”

With a noncommittal noise from her patient, the matron retreated into her office. Hermione watched her, and she could hear the pounding of her own heartbeat loud in her ears. As soon as the door clicked to a close behind the nurse, Malfoy kicked back the covers, face twisting in pain. He swung his legs over the bed and got to his feet, gripping the bedframe tightly.

Hermione’s head shot to look at him. Alarmed, she demanded, "Where are you going?"

Malfoy snorted. "Hell, most likely."

“That’s not what I meant,” she replied quickly. “I meant Madam Pomfrey just told you that you have to stay overnight! Whether that’s because your injuries are bad or because she thinks you’ll only end up with more in the state you’re in-“

“The state I’m in?” Malfoy interrupted. He scoffed. “That’s rich.”

Hermione ignored him. She’d spent seven years excelling at it. But when he grabbed his wand from the bedside table and winced as he bent down to tie his shoes. His back was just as bruised as his front. She bit her lip and felt her eyes roll back into her head as she realised what she was going to do.

“I can’t let you go,” she said, almost cringing as she did. She flicked her wand and his laces undid themselves again.

Malfoy didn’t even flinch. He raised an eyebrow and fixed her with a steady stare, the warning dark and cold in his flint eyes. He began to tie his laces again.

Hermione grimaced, and she inhaled sharply before jabbing her wand again and his laces pulled completely out, shoes darting from his feet and skidding to land against the far wall.

“What the fuck is your problem, Granger?” Malfoy growled, and Hermione noticed his hands were shaking, clutching the bedsheets tightly. He looked like he was restraining from wrapping them around her neck. He was scowling at the floor.

She swallowed.

“You are hurt, Malfoy,” she said, surprised at how strong her voice sounded. She crossed her arms for emphasis. “So you will stay here and if I have to knock you out, so be it.”

His knuckles had turned white, but he relaxed his grip on the blanket. Hermione watched him for a moment longer to make sure he didn’t try anything else. When he didn’t move, she let out the breath she’d been holding, and moved to sit on the chair by his bedside. The silence wrapped around them for the agonising space of a few minutes.

Malfoy let out a frustrated sigh, and he stood up (swaying ever so slightly), before summoning his shoes, ripping his shirt from the back of the chair and setting off towards the door. Hermione shot to her feet.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, frustration pulling her eyebrows into a frown, sending her hands to her hips. Her voice broke almost as if it was desperate but she pushed that thought out of her mind immediately.

“I didn’t think I had to tell you where I go,” Malfoy said, turning on his heel to look at her. He raised his eyebrows. Hermione bristled. “In fact, I didn’t think it was any of your business.”

She spluttered for an answer because _technically_ , he was right. She didn’t care. He could saunter his way back to the Slytherin Common Room and break another two ribs for all that she did care.

He’d made it to the doors when she realised that was a lie.

_“Draco-”_

It was a last bid attempt and they both knew it. The desperation in her voice fell frigid on the air. Malfoy froze.

He didn’t turn round this time. “Don’t call me that, Granger. We’re not friends, I told you-“

 _“I know!”_ stressed Hermione. “I just-” Merlin, was she crying? Her eyes were hot and wet and she blinked, but that just made the tears fall faster. She dragged her arm across her face. Malfoy watched her.

“Draco,” she said. She was just so tired. Her heart felt heavy and sore in her chest. She screwed her eyes shut and for some goddamn reason, all she could see in the black space there were the crescent moons under Draco Malfoy’s tired eyes and the dying meadow of bruises across his skin. “I know we’re not friends. I know that. But- God, please come back. You need to rest. You’re not okay, Malfoy. You need to rest.”

Malfoy stared at her. No flicker of anything passed across his face and his chest remained still, almost like he had stopped breathing entirely. They seemed to stare at one another for ever. Then, he swallowed, and walked slowly back to the bed. He dropped his shoes on the floor, laid his shirt over the post, and braced his weight on the mattress, but his arms were too weak and his pain too profound that a small cry broke free. Hermione didn’t hesitate; she moved over and wrapped her arm around his waist, careful not to touch any of his scars even though his skin was a battlefield of them, so she could hoist him onto the bed. She gave him the blanket, and moved to sit back down on the chair.

“Your care is wasted on me, Granger,” he said quietly. Hermione pretended she hadn’t heard him.

“You look like you haven’t slept in days,” she said instead. “I’ll make sure Madam Pomfrey doesn’t wake you.”

Malfoy had melted into his pillow. His hand slackened. It must have been one of the potions finally working its way into his bloodstream, for Hermione’s face swam in and out of his view.

Numbly, he asked, “You’re staying, Granger?”

Hermione swallowed. Malfoy had already closed his eyes so he missed the way her face succumbed to despair. “Yes, Malfoy,” she whispered. She didn’t know if he caught it. “I’m not going anywhere. I have to make sure you don’t vomit up your medicine.”


	6. Violet Spoons, Underground Rooms and Hermione Granger

** Chapter Six- Violet Spoons, Underground Rooms and Hermione Granger **

 

Hermione didn’t leave his bedside.

At lunchtime, she’d considered visiting her teachers to collect the work both she and Malfoy had missed but had taken instead to counting the bricks in the opposite wall, first bottom left to bottom right, then the reverse, and then top right to top left, and the reverse. She couldn’t now remember how many bricks there were but it had seemed somewhat important at the time. Eventually, when the light faded from the skies and Madam Pomfrey had been to check on her patient (who hadn’t woken up once) before disappearing for a final time, Hermione allowed herself some sleep.

The chair wasn’t particularly comfortable but she was small enough to make it work. Even so, her neck twisted at a funny angle and she clutched onto her knees, her tongue tasting nothing but potion in the air, and the silence of the sleeping castle. She slept fitfully, woken all of a sudden in a seizure of voiceless panic, before she realised where she was and what had happened the previous day to get her there. There was never much momentum to her nightmares- they simply frightened her into consciousness and she was left grappling for a piece of what made them so haunting.

Hermione was asleep when she heard him screaming.

She jolted awake, the chair clattering, and looked around. Malfoy was writhing on the bed, gripping the side of the mattress so tightly his arms had turned white and the blue of his veins gleamed in the moonlight. His face was screwed up in agony, and he’d bitten his lip so hard it had reopened the cuts, and the blood trickled down his chin. Hermione stumbled to his side. She felt his forehead, her other hand wrapped over his clenched fist, shaking him. He was burning.

“Malfoy,” she whispered. She ragged his hand, trying to wake him. He just whimpered. “Malfoy. It’s not real. Wake up! Wake up-“

He shot up. His hand twisted to grip hers, and his eyes, wide and frightened, darted around the room, lingering on the dark shapes in the shadows. Malfoy finally looked at her- she wasn’t sure if he really saw her- and threw up.

Hermione jumped out of the way. He was still holding her hand so tightly she thought he might accidentally break her fingers, but she managed to rub his back with her other hand, making soothing noises, as he retched. He continued to gag even when there was nothing left and he was running on empty. When he was finished, his body slumped and he fell back against the pillows, sick drying on his chin.

Hermione pressed her lips into a line. He looked so spent, so inexhaustibly tired. She pried her hand out of his, and Malfoy didn’t even open his eyes, and began to clean him up, vanishing the pool of vomit that had stained the floor and the bedsheets.

She sat gingerly on the edge of his bed when she was done. He looked dead, grey and exhausted, and Hermione wanted to hold his hand again, to remind him he was still alive.

“Bad dream?” she whispered. It seemed like a stupid question once it shattered the air. Malfoy nodded. He still had his eyes closed and he was taking big, silent breaths that racked his chest. “I get those too.”

He didn’t reply. Hermione wasn’t sure whether he had even heard her, but she stayed sitting beside him, staring down at her shoes. The night felt quieter than before.

“I need to get out of here, Granger,” Malfoy said. Hermione didn’t know whether he meant the bed, the school or something bigger. He finally looked at her. “Can we go somewhere?”

His eyes were tired and bloodshot.

She nodded. “Okay. Where would you like to go?”

***

She checked first that Madam Pomfrey wasn’t stirring, listening at her door for any sign the matron was awake. The castle was silent, however, and Hermione crept back to Malfoy, shimmying his shoes onto his feet because he was too weak to do it himself, and handing him his shirt.

He hissed when he gingerly swung himself round to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling his shirt on. She looked away as he buttoned it up.

“You need to be quiet,” she told him. “It’s past curfew.”

Malfoy snorted. “I’m not a First Year, Granger. I’ve done this before.”

She pursed her lips but chose to ignore him and they set off from the Hospital Wing together, into the dark and silence. Luckily, they didn’t encounter another soul as they walked, neither one daring or perhaps willing to speak first. Hermione tried to be inconspicuous when she glanced at him, monitoring his face for any sign of pain, ready to catch him if he fell. He gave her the liberty of pretending not to notice. To his credit, Malfoy didn’t falter once.

She didn’t really know where they were going, nor who was leading, but their feet seemed to carry them down to the same place. Malfoy tickled the pear, and didn’t spare her a glance as they both ducked their heads and stepped into the kitchens.

Hermione was surprised to see that, despite it being the middle of the night, the kitchen was still in full swing. Elves bustled in and out of the little doorways, and the ovens in the main room were all on, emanating a comforting heat.

“Master Draco!” Winky exclaimed. Her eyes shone and she stopped immediately, wiping her little hands on her apron. Her face grew mournful and she cried, “Master Draco isn’t well! Master Draco should be sleeping. I’s go get the usual for Master Draco?”

Malfoy swallowed, glancing at Hermione then back at the trembling elf. “No, thank you. Just two teas please, Winky.”

It was only then that Winky noticed Hermione and she blinked and beamed. “Missus Hermione! Come right this way, Winky will get you your teas. Sit here please!”

Winky led them to the little circular table in the corner. They both sat down. Malfoy curled the sprig of rosemary that tickled his ear, and it bounced back against the wall. There was mistletoe a little further up, and vines of thyme by her shoulder. She watched Winky as she bustled away to fetch them their drinks, smile plastered on her face.

“They work through the night?” Hermione demanded as soon as the elf had disappeared. She made sure her voice, though horrified, was low enough that they couldn’t hear her.

Malfoy shot her a scathing look. “They do shifts, Granger. Just like any other professional establishment. Giving them liberties not even wizards get would be an insult.”

“But-!”

“Granger,” he seethed. He closed his eyes. She recognised the warning, and she shut her mouth.

Neither one of them spoke again until Winky returned with their teas, beaming when they thanked her. Hermione inhaled the smell of jasmine. She took a sip, and it warmed her though, replacing the rancid aftertaste of potion. Over the rim of her teacup, she watched Malfoy play with his spoon.

Hermione placed her cup back down on the table. “Can I-?” Malfoy raised his eyes to her, but held it out for her to take. Her hands were shaking slightly.

“Watch this,” she said. “You’ll be impressed.”

His eyebrow quirked. “Doubtful.”

She scowled at him, though quickly redirected her attention. Hermione breathed on the spoon, fogging it up so she couldn’t see her reflection. She glanced up at him. His dark eyes were locked on her. She tilted her chin up slightly, and placed the spoon on her nose, holding it there for a moment, before moving her hand away and holding both her arms in the air.

The victorious grin only lasted a second, for the spoon fell and clattered to the table. Hermione let out a surprised noise, looking at the piece of cutlery like it had betrayed her. Malfoy snorted, and her eyes shot to him. There was a slight curl to his lips, and the sharpness of his eyebrow softened. He caught her eye, and froze. Hermione blushed, and took a sip of her tea.

“What’s your favourite colour?” she asked him. She knew the question was trivial but she couldn’t think of anything else to say and she was curious to know the answer.

Malfoy blinked at her. He repeated dubiously, his lip curling to show her just how unimpressed he was by her small talk, “My favourite colour?”

“Just play along,” she snapped at him and he raised a single white eyebrow but complied nonetheless.

Malfoy inhaled deeply, staring at her. “I don’t know. It depends.”

“On what?”

“On how fucked up I’m feeling at any one particular time,” he replied lightly. Hermione’s eyes were locked on his pale and pretty face.

“Well, what is it now?”

And Malfoy raised his chin, eyes unfocused and glazed over. He was silent for a few untouched moments before the smallest smile curled his lips and he said, “Violet.”

Her eyebrows raised and she repeated, “Violet? I was expecting green.”

“How terribly cliché of you, Granger.” His smile was cool and sharp like flint. “I’m not your typical snake.”

“No,” she acceded. “But you are a typical Slytherin.”

“And what’s your favourite colour then, Granger?” he snarled. “Crimson and gold? You wouldn’t want to disappoint the stereotype, would you? Merlin forbid we disrupt the harmony of good and evil at play here. Or is it white? And before you open your smart mouth, I know it’s not a colour, it’s a fucking shade.”

Hermione stared at him. Her skin had prickled and she looked away to trace at the cracks in the wall. She said, “Violet is a very nice colour.”

Malfoy blinked, and his entire body slackened, shoulders dropping, hackles lowering. A charming smile, dripping with sarcasm, stole across his face. “I suppose I’m not feeling overly fucked up at present.”

“You must’ve had a good sleep up until that nightmare then,” she commented. “You‘ve been out like a light since this morning.”

His face darkened. He hadn’t touched his tea. It was probably stone-cold. Hermione swallowed, and her eyes returned to the wall because there was something that trapped her when she looked at him for too long. So she read the safe lettering on the barrels, wondering how many bricks there were-

“It’s always the same one.”

She looked at him then. “What is?”

Malfoy didn’t meet her gaze, but stared at his tea. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his long eyelashes were congealed and falling out. His skin was pallid, stretched taut over his skull, as though he was a skeleton wearing flesh that was two sizes too small. And, damn it, despite it all, there was still something pretty about him, in the same way a rose retains its elegance even as it withers.

“My nightmare.”

He looked like a skeleton but the fragility of his voice was all human.

Hermione found she clung to the humanity in him.

“It always starts with my Mother. She’s sitting in the garden, next to her roses. She was always proud of her flowers. She grew them without magic, and when I was young, we’d spend hours planting seeds so the garden would be full of colour in spring...

“They‘re white. The roses. She looks so happy, like she used to before, and I’m standing a little way off, watching her. Sometimes I try to call to her but she never hears me. It’s like I’m some sort of ghost, as if we’re not in the same memory, or she’s too far away, and then I hear a crack.”

Malfoy craned his neck to the side, eyes screwed shut. Hermione saw the veins pulse under his skin.

“I turn around and my arm starts to burn, and He’s there, in my drawing room. My father is behind Him, and my Aunt, and they’re holding-“ His breath hitched. “They’ve got you. And Potter. Even Weasley. You all look different, like you did that day. Dirty and frightened, with Potter’s face so bloated he looked more like Longbottom in First Year. They throw you all at my feet and they ask me if you really are who they think you are. I can’t answer. I never say anything. And then my-“

His breathing became panicked, and silent tears fell from Hermione’s eyes. She watched him, and her hand gripped her arm tightly because she could feel the knife against her skin again.

“My aunt grabs you. She- she- _fuck_ , she-  cuts you, and all I do is watch. I hear you screaming every time I close my eyes. Sometimes it’s enough to wake me. But when it doesn’t, when it’s really bad, I manage to break free and I- I fucking run, Granger. I run from that room, and I leave you all there, and I run to my mother in the garden, and all the roses have bled red. And she just sits there, and I try to wake her up, to bring her back to me but she’s gone. I wake up when everything starts to go cold and I feel this-“ He stretched out his foot, dragging his trousers up to his knee, exposing the flashing blue anklet, “- fucking sentence against my leg. I wake up when I know they’re coming for me, when I feel them reach for my soul.”

Malfoy couldn’t look at her. His lip was curled and his eyes were hooded, his fist clenched against his knee. Hermione let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

She wanted desperately to hold his hand and to tell him things he needed to hear, but she worried she would be overcome with agony if she let go of the scar. Numbly, Hermione realised how the war was still raging, even though it had ended months ago. It hit her quite abruptly.

“You had no choice,” she said quietly.

“Everyone has a choice, Granger. You said you get them too. What are yours about?”

“Mine change.” Hermione swallowed. “I can never remember them when I wake up but they seem so- _real_ when I’m asleep. Sometimes it will be memories from the war. Sometimes it’s things I anticipated happening but never did. But they’re so- so hazy. I can’t recall them.”

She opened her mouth to say something more but the breath choked her. “I feel like every bone, every organ and part of me has been muddled up so thoroughly and completely that I’m no longer the same person. I have nothing in me anymore, Malfoy. I have nothing else to give.”

“Don’t say that,” he murmured. His voice and eyes were ice.

“Why not?” she demanded. Hers were fire.

He slammed his hand on the table. “Because _you_ cannot lose hope! The moment Hermione Granger loses hope is the moment the rest of us realise we’re fucked, okay, Granger? And I don’t need that reminder!”

He’d risen, chair clattering to the ground behind him, and his shirt was buttoned unevenly so she could see the bruised flesh underneath. It was dark and purple, and Hermione clenched her teeth. She wanted to shout back at him. That ugly flare of fire that reared up in her stomach whenever Draco Malfoy opened his mouth had been dormant for so long. It was bizarre, she thought, so out of the blue that it made her snap her lips shut with the sudden clarity of it: Draco Malfoy was the only thing that made her feel anything anymore. It didn’t matter that the feelings were usually annoyance or despair. It made her tense her jaw and have something to cling on to.

“I need to check your injuries. You vomited up most of the potions and you shouldn’t even be out of bed,” she said. Malfoy relaxed, but only just. He shrugged, tossing his head away from her, and she moved closer. Her fingers shook a little as she unbuttoned his shirt, and Hermione couldn’t help but wince at the state of him. She prodded his stomach, eyes flicking to his face to check for any sign of pain. She knew Skelegrow worked fast but she had a feeling he was holding back. Her fingers dusted over the valley of his ribs, where the bruises covered his skin; she knew the yellower ones must have been from previous altercations, but the large, blue ones were so painfully fresh. Hermione dragged her eyes to his scar. It was so deep, and long, groping from his throat to his belt, almost as though someone had tried gutting him, slicing him open. It had to be dark magic. She could think of no legal spell that would do such irreparable damage- and it _was_ irreparable. Hermione could tell by the way the scab wept and threatened to break and bleed again. She doubted he would ever be free of it, and then wondered what he thought about that. She knew his vanity had once known no bounds, and wondered if he hated what he saw when he looked in the mirror now. The other, smaller cuts across his chest were shallower, and she wondered if these were Harry’s doing. She chewed at her lip, and prayed to any God listening that they weren’t. But then, she couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.

She wished he didn’t have scars at all.

Hermione dared to look up at him. He had his eyes closed. She took a deep breath. “Malfoy.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. His eyes, though light, were dark. “I know this is a stupid question but- are you okay?”

He didn’t even move. She couldn’t tell if there was a scuffle between his brain and his teeth or if he hadn’t heard her properly. And then, he said, “I’m fine, Granger. We should head back before Pomfrey realises you’ve kidnapped me.”

Hermione couldn’t spare him a laugh.

They thanked Winky for their tea, though Malfoy’s remained untouched, and made their way back to the Hospital Wing in silence. Hermione used her wand to open the heavy doors without so much as a creak, and they slipped inside.

Malfoy shrugged off his shirt and his shoes, and he eased himself onto the bed.

“You should take some more potion,” said Hermione.

Malfoy pulled a face. “You’re not my caretaker, Granger.”

Arms crossed, she raised her eyebrows at him. “I’m not? Then what have I been for the past twelve hours? You’re babysitter?”

He settled himself into his pillow, pulling the covers up to his chin, but he still managed to glare at her. “Don’t push it.”

She huffed, but let it drop. Her body felt far too heavy, and she collapsed into the chair, resting her head on her hand and checking the time on her watch. If she fell asleep immediately, she could still squeeze three hours. Somehow, she doubted she’d even manage that, jasmine tea or not. There was something about this night that felt unattainable.

“Are you okay, Granger?”

Malfoy was looking up at her blearily, fighting a losing battle to keep his eyes open long enough to get an answer from her. Hermione swallowed. She smiled at him, and brushed a bit of white hair from his eyes because she knew he didn’t have the strength to be rude about it.

“I’m Hermione Granger,” she said quietly. “I have to be.”


	7. Life Before

** Chapter Seven- Life Before **

“What the fuck did I say? Honestly, Draco. You better repeat it back to me, word-for-word so I know you’re listening because I’m starting to get the impression that everything I say means nothing to you!”

Draco sighed, closing his book and raising his eyebrows at his friend. “Why, Blaise, I’m feeling much better, thank you for asking.”

Blaise stopped short of his bedside, though he very much looked like he would like to storm closer and strangle Draco, seething as he was. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Don’t tempt me, Draco. Merlin knows I want you to suffer more, you dumb fuckhead.”

“Have you been practising this speech in the mirror? If so, I’m disappointed that’s the version you went with. I’m sure you could do much better.”

Blaise opened his mouth to retaliate, fist clenched by his side, but he just fell into the chair by Draco’s bed. He buried his face in his hands. Draco sighed and put the book on his bedside table, reaching out for his friend. “Blaise-“

“You don’t get it, Draco,” he said before Draco could go any further, locking eyes with him. It didn’t look like Blaise had slept much either if the circles under his eyes were anything to go by. He looked tired and defeated. “You might not care what happens to you anymore, but I do. Okay? I do. And you could drive yourself to the edge, you could stand on that cliff and try to throw yourself off, and I will still use all my power to keep your feet flat on the ground. Do you hear me, Draco? I won’t let you destroy yourself. So either you’re going to start caring or you’re going to destroy me too. It’s your choice now.”

Draco stared at him. He wanted to tell him that caring was what had gotten him into this position in the first place, that he had loved too much and lost everything as a result. He didn’t think Blaise would want to hear it, however, so he kept his mouth shut and hazarded a guess at how many bricks were in the opposite wall.

“How are you feeling?” asked Blaise, with a sigh.

“Like I’ve been kicked in the ribs a couple times,” said Draco, and he gave his friend a small smile.

Blaise laughed a little, scratching his head. He said, “You deserved it. You shouldn’t go picking fights with the next foolhardy dumbass that comes your way. The world’s full of them- you’d never get a rest.”

“I didn’t pick this one. I tried to ignore him.”

Blaise lounged back in his chair. “Then try harder next time.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “What did I miss in lesson?”

“Changing the subject doesn’t negate the matter at hand.” Nevertheless, Blaise stretched out his legs and leaned back in the chair, counting off on his fingers the extensive list of homework. “McGonagall set an essay on the limitations of conjuration-”

“Thrilling.”

“-and we learned some new Runes we have to memorise. Defence was more of the same but you got it first try, so nothing missed there. Oh, and Slughorn started the coursework. There are a few regulations but it’s pretty much open to anything so I’ll give you my notes when you get out.” He paused. “If you get out.”

Draco snorted. “If?”

“You never know, Hamelin might come back and finish the job when he finds out you’re still breathing.”

“Hopefully, he’ll get a move on, then,” said Draco. Blaise scowled. “Hang on, how did you know which foolhardy prick it was?”

His friend smirked a little at that, folding back his sleeves. “I have my sources, Draco.” He sobered up. “You’re fucking stupid with how you handled it.”

Draco looked away. He wasn’t easy to chastise. His parents had always been strict and he most certainly knew how to behave and all the rules of etiquette, but he rarely felt the stinging of reprimand and if he did, it never lasted long. His father had either neglected to speak to him, locking himself in his study for days on end, or beat him with the silver cane he always carried. Chiding was drowned out by the crack of the stick against his skin. His mother had a sharp tongue but she followed it up with tender touches, brushing his hair or stroking his face, that the aftermath of his mother’s scolding never really hurt. There was something about Blaise’s blasé tone, however, and the way his rebuke left no room for argument that smarted more than Draco cared to admit.

“I hadn’t slept.”

“Cut the bullshit, Draco. I know you. I know how you think. You’re not a bad guy, far from it, but if that Ravenclaw prick wanted a villain, I know that you’d be more than willing to accommodate him. You’ve got to understand that a mark on your arm doesn’t make you evil.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” muttered Draco bitterly. “Your arm is clean.”

Blaise fell silent at that. He’d been one of the lucky ones. His mother, although high in standing, had ostracised herself from the Death Eaters’ ranks when, shortly after becoming a widow, she took her first Muggle lover, though Draco doubted she knew then that it would save both her own life and that of her son. She was also a smooth enough talker to wheedle her way out of it, a charmer of snakes with the uncanny knack of knowing what you were feeling with only a glance into your eyes: an infuriating ability she had passed onto her only heir.

Blaise stared at him, and he avoided looking at his friend because he knew what he’d give away if he did, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to crack and pour every remaining morsel of hope into the abyss.

“He needed someone to blame,” said Draco in a low voice. “They all did. It was all I could give them.

Blaise watched him, his dark eyes unsure and unsteady. “The war is over, Draco.”

He screwed his eyes shut and when he swallowed, it strained his throat. “No, Blaise. It’s not even close.”

Blaise didn’t reply. He hauled his bag onto his lap and made a pile of what Draco suspected was all the work he’d missed. Draco knew better than to complain. His stomach whirled and he was glad he hadn’t eaten that morning because he was sure it would come back up.

 

“You took your time in coming to see me,” he said instead. He flicked through the Transfiguration work but he didn’t see a word of it.

Blaise retrieved an orange from his bag and, without breaking eye contact, began peeling it. His lips twisted into a wry smile. “Thought I’d finally given up on you?”

“Thought you’d finally come to your senses,” muttered Draco.

Blaise laughed. He hummed. “Yeah. You keep saying that.” He popped an orange piece into his mouth. “If it’s any consolation, I did come sooner.”

Draco’s eyes shot to him. “You did?”

“Yesterday. I came to see if you were still alive.” Draco waited and he realised he was holding his breath. Blaise glanced at him. “You were. You also weren’t alone.”

It was almost as though his heart had dropped through a chasm in his chest. One moment, it had been pounding so hard he thought it might break through his skin and run away, and the next it had plummeted to his stomach, into a darkness so deep he couldn’t hear it ticking. Draco let out the breath he had been holding to see if his heart would start up again. It didn’t.

“Why was Hermione Granger here, Draco?”

“She brought me here.”

“Let me rephrase then. Why did she stay?”

Draco swallowed, but his throat was dry and the taste of Blaise’s question was bitter. It wasn’t like the question was one he hadn’t asked himself. He’d asked himself that question a million times since he’d woken up that morning to find the bedsheets still tucked up to his chin and the chair beside his bed tucked neatly to the side. Part of him, a very small part, scathingly suggested that she was just doing what she’d always done: Draco was just her next pet project. He’d noticed she had a thing for the broken and forgotten when she burst into his carriage in First Year, spouting off about some toad. He hadn’t really listened, eyeing her bushy hair and buck teeth with a sneer because he knew she couldn’t possibly be Pure enough to step foot in one of his Mother’s parties, but the name Longbottom had jumped out at him. Of course he’d heard that name before. The boy who it belonged to was broken and bumbling and Draco knew it the moment he laid eyes on him. He didn’t think twice about the girl but he supposed it made sense now. The fact that she made friends with Potter and Weasley only seemed to cement the fact. Then, there was the mortifying disaster of her bloody House Elf campaign.

Granger had a thing for lost souls.

Draco Malfoy was not lost. He was not broken and forgotten. He would not be the next charm in her string of miserable misfits the world chewed up and spat on. He was not in the gutter and even if he was, Hermione Granger was most certainly not going to be the one to haul him out. Draco didn’t want her pity.

And yet, there was another part of him, a little bit bigger than the last part, that sought her out in the corridor. When the doors of the Hospital Wing opened, he would automatically assume she was back to check he still had a pulse. He didn’t want her to. He still couldn’t stand to look at the despair in her eyes, nor listen to the bossy know-it-all voice she used on him, but some part of him yearned for those things. Draco wondered if it was because she was unwavering normalcy, a snippet of Life Before. That he clung to Granger was terrifying enough- he didn’t allow himself the liberty to dwell on any other reason why it might be so, because the moment he’d done so, all he could hear was the clatter of the spoon as it fell from her nose and her surprised laugh.

“Are you friends?” Blaise asked. His voice was even, neither mocking nor curious but Draco heard both regardless.

He said immediately, “No.”

The silence that followed was hard and unrelenting that he couldn’t let it persist.

“She helps me sleep,” he murmured. It was the most he could allow himself without tearing a massive hole in his body and letting his organs spill out. Any more and he’d give himself entirely to her. “I don’t know how. I don’t know why her. She’s as empty as I am and maybe I like seeing her broken, maybe it’s some leftover part of the person I used to be, or maybe it’s a reminder I’m not alone in this constant fucking nightmare. We’re both wrecked and somehow, I get peace from the fact.”

When Draco looked at his friend, Blaise’s face was taut and pained. “You hated each other for years... and now, you’re- what? Civil for the sake of a good night’s sleep?”

“I still hate her,” said Draco but it was too quick. “She makes me feel weak.”

Blaise leaned back in his chair. He watched Draco for a very long time, and he must’ve caught the twitch of his eye and the crack in his voice. He must have seen everything that had happened, all of his nightmares, all the horrors from the war that played out in his eyes, every single secret meeting with Granger, because it encompassed the sag of his shoulders and crumbling resolution of his face. When Blaise spoke next, Draco remembered how to breathe.

“I’ll be honest with you, Draco. It sounds to me like she makes you feel hope.”


	8. Life Now

** Chapter Eight- Life Now **

Malfoy’s bed was empty and made when Hermione returned to the Hospital Wing later that day. She had brought a book that had reminded her of him from the library and a small parcel of food from the kitchens, and had just turned the corner when she noticed he was suspiciously absent. The room was empty and all she could do was stand and stare at the place he had been. When her brain caught up, Hermione turned on her heel and went back to the Common Room.

It had been three days since she had last seen him.

Malfoy didn’t turn up for any of their lessons. Hermione didn’t see him in the Great Hall. They didn’t cross paths when they went on their midnight wanders when neither of them could sleep.

She found the insomnia worse than before, waking as soon as the sun stirred if she fell asleep at all, and spent every moment of her free time in the library. Working distracted her. It tired her out too so that even if she couldn’t sleep during the night, she managed a nap at the very least. Hermione sat with Ginny and Neville at mealtimes, pretending to listen. They spoke about insignificant things and sometimes Luna would join them, and the conversation would reach a level of absurd that Hermione would tune out straight away. She still wrote to Harry and Ron. Mrs Weasley still sent her knitted scarves and gloves and hats.

But Hermione felt lonely.

Try as she might, she couldn’t stop her eyes from seeking him out. There was something about the fury in Malfoy, the unbridled fear and feeling, that reminded her she was alive too. Hermione didn’t think he realised it, but he believed in her.

She needed his belief in her.

That was the reason, she convinced herself, that she was currently chasing Blaise Zabini down the corridor, walking as quickly as her legs would carry her, neglecting the fact that she had Ancient Runes next and her school bag was on her bed back in her dorm. The Slytherin was much taller than her and he walked faster. The coattails of his green cloak were about to disappear around the corner when Hermione broke into a run and called, “Zabini!”

Whether he didn’t hear her or he ignored her, she didn’t know.

She huffed and skirted round the corner. “Zabini!”

Now, he stopped and turned around.

Hermione didn’t think she’d ever spoken a word to the boy in front of her. He’d never been particularly loud or vehement in his distaste for people like her and whilst he was intelligent enough to be in most of her classes, he kept mostly to himself. Blaise Zabini was tall and impassive. He didn’t radiate disgust like Malfoy always used to, but gave the impression that he was somewhat impatient with everyone that wasted their breath on him. He regarded her with a single raised eyebrow.

She took a breath.

“Have you seen-?”

He didn’t let her finish.

“I’ll be straight with you, Granger, because I’m a Slytherin and we have a reputation for being honest, even to the point of brutality.” Hermione snapped her lips shut. “I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you. Your blood status didn’t help, but I don’t care for all that. You rub me up the wrong way- too smartass and haughty.” He spoke so matter-of-fact, but his voice wavered now, fading and regaining track again unsteadily. “So if you’ve got some kind of agenda, if you get some kind of- of sick kick out of seeing Draco down and beaten, then I don’t want you anywhere near him...”

Hermione stared at him, dumbfounded. She felt her gut coil with fury and she opened her mouth to argue when Zabini cut her off. He pinched his nose tiredly.

“That being said... when I saw you by his side in the Hospital Wing, I- you help him sleep. I don’t know how. I don’t know why you. Somehow, despite your irritating volume, you quiet everything in his head, so... thank you, Granger. Before he got the shit beaten out of him and you hauled his sorry arse back to reality, I- I honestly thought that was it. That he was dead, that he’d died years ago. Now, I’m starting to think he survived the war after all.”

Hermione didn’t look at him. Her eyes traced the cracks in the stone floor. “The fighting might be over but the war is still happening, Zabini. He’s survived so far. But I think he’s still teetering over the edge.”

She still wasn’t looking at him so she heard rather than saw his despair, for it caught in his throat when he said, “How do I catch him if he falls?”

Now, Hermione raised her chin and she smiled at him. Zabini had never been so vulnerable; she threw him entirely off guard. “This war has claimed too many people. I won’t let it claim another. Draco Malfoy will not fall. I refuse to let him.”

“He’s too proud for that, Granger. You know he is.”

Hermione sighed. “I know. If I knew another arse-kicking would knock him out of it, I’d gladly do it myself, but I’m not sure.”

Zabini chuckled, but the sound died on his lips too quickly, as if he remembered who they were and what they were talking about. “He’s immune to physical pain now. You don’t know what they did to him, Granger.”

“Then tell me,” she whispered.

Zabini stared at her. A muscle clenched in his jaw. “They broke him. Now, he’s facing a life sentence for trying to survive.”

Hermione’s body went cold. Her stomach dropped and she felt the horror crawling through her veins, rushing in the blood to her head. “Life?”

“You didn’t know?”

She could only shake her head. Her hands shook _. Dear God, how could anyone condemn a child?_

Zabini shifted, holding his head in his hand for a moment. He said, “Don’t tell him I told you.”

“Where is he?” she managed to get out.

He looked at her unsurely. “Granger…”

“Zabini, he helps me sleep too.”

There was a sliver of indecision playing across his face, tearing at the indifference he usually wore there but Hermione stood her ground. The school bell rung but she ignored it. Ancient Runes could wait because Draco Malfoy was in pain and she needed to find him.

Zabini eyed her cautiously. “What are you going to do, Granger?”

She pursed her lips and tilted her chin ever so slightly higher. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind whilst he’s still around for me to do it.”

 

**oOoOoOo**

 

Somehow, she managed to convince Zabini. She wondered if it was the conviction in her voice or if he had seen her soul leaking out of her eyes. Either way, Hermione found herself traipsing down the sloping lawns with her back to the school she was meant to be studying in, cloak whipping about her legs, heart in her mouth. She followed the path down to the lake, then skirted right towards the forest, curving round the banking where the trees thickened into shade and the sticks cracking under her feet provided the only pathway back to the rest of the world. Sound cut off suddenly and she was left alone with the shakiness of each breath and the pounding of her heart in her ears.

“Head towards the Black Lake,” Zabini had said. “Follow it round, even when the footpath ends, keep going. There’s a little hidden shingle. He likes the quietness there.”

Hermione waded through the shadows. She knew he wouldn’t be thrilled to see her, especially not entreating on his secret space, but he’d avoided her for long enough. Her mind was whirring with things she needed to say to him, but every outcome resulted in him running away from her or sneering in her face and she didn’t know if she could cope with either. He needed to hear this. The truth would hurt him but it might also save him and sweet Merlin, if the latter was a possibility, Hermione Granger was going to try it.

A life sentence.

She remembered sitting with him on the cold stone floor, staring at the blinking band around his ankle. _Pending trial._ Hermione had no idea then that it was so serious. She thought he might be on for house arrest or community work. But as she walked through the chill, she heard his voice, broken and terrified:

_“I wake up when I know they’re coming for me, when I feel them reach for my soul.”_

It was cold out already. September had frozen into October and winter was crisp and ready on the air, curling leaves that clung to branches and stealing every breath that left her lips. Hermione wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck because, despite the cold, when she caught sight of him, she was sure it dropped a few degrees colder.

It wasn’t so much that he was a cold person, more his countenance never held a flicker of warmth, and the marble like features of his face ensured he looked more like a statue, than a living human being. His large chest barely moved when he breathed, and his eyes would regard everything with an air of boredom. He was impossibly tall, with pale skin, never fused with blush, and blond hair that remained the only thing to be moved by outside influences when the wind threaded through it. But what really struck her were his eyes: two light and icy glaciers, more blue than the summer skies, enough to make even the sun freeze over. He hid everything in those eyes.

“Malfoy.”

He seized up.

“What are you doing here, Granger?” he asked in a low voice.

Seeing him now, the words she had practised in her head, all the rationality she had stored inside of her, flooded from her tongue. Hermione only felt tangible relief, so profound it almost made her sob. It was short-lived, however, and in its place, the terrible head of anger reared, infecting her entire body. She couldn’t hold it back. When she stopped, rooted to the spot, and he turned to face her, Hermione could only stare at him and clench her gloved fists.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

Malfoy’s lips twisted. “I haven’t been avoiding you, Granger. It’s a big castle. People like us, we don’t cross paths naturally.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “People like us?”

His breath was harsh and derisive. “Do you really have to ask?”

“Clearly.”

Malfoy pressed his lips into a line and stared at her for a moment. He shook his head a little, and said, “Granger, we are on different sides of this fight-”

“What fight, Malfoy?” demanded Hermione. She started forwards but he matched her with each step back. “There is some non-existent battle between us that you seem to think you’re losing! I know you close your eyes and we’re back in the war but we are not fighting one another, Malfoy. We’re on the same side of this life. Maybe it’s not the side we want to be on because it’s harder here, but that’s the way it is, so suck it up and live, Malfoy, because no one is going to do it for you!”

His face twisted, like he’d swallowed something sour, and he turned away, towards the lake. The afternoon sun danced across the surface, and Hermione had to squint to take it in. The sheer audacity of the sunlight warmed her skin. She closed her eyes briefly.

“I don’t care anymore, Granger,” said Malfoy.

Hermione looked at him. “Well I do. So you better start caring or I swear to God-”

“What? What will you do?” He laughed. It was bitter and cold and she flinched. “You can’t do any worse.”

“Can’t I?”

Malfoy winced.

She sighed heavily, the rest of her frustration falling from her lips like a stone in water. “I feel like we only ever go in circles. We’ve had a variation of this same conversation over and over again.”

“Then stop it,” he murmured.

“What?” demanded Hermione. The fury sparked in her again. “Is it so bad? That you’re the only thing that makes me feel even relatively alive?”

He whipped around, and his hair glinted in the dying sunlight. Hermione felt her heart ache; his lips were thin and red, splitting along the seam where he’d bitten them to stop from crying out or screaming, and his face was screwed up in nothing short of agony.

“Yes! It is! It’s the worst fucking thing, Granger, because we are not friends.” Malfoy moved so close to her, and he was seething. His teeth were bared and clenched and he hissed his words, of spraying her with spit. There was a blue vein pulsating in his forehead. “I made your life hell for seven years. I see you screaming, bleeding out in my house, every night when I try to sleep. I don’t need this, Granger! I don’t need this, and I don’t need you! Just do us both a favour and fuck off.”

He started toward her and Hermione stumbled backwards, tripping over the pebbles on the beach. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him, even as they teared up. “Why must you keep saying that? Do you think I’ve forgotten where we stood before the war? Do you think this is normal to me? That I like being so dependent on someone who hates my guts?”

Malfoy stopped. He stared at her, breathing heavily. The trees sighed, the wind curled around their ankles, kissing their necks, and it was almost as though they were a hurricane, wreaking havoc through a field of flowers.

The words were torn from his lips.

“I don’t hate you.”

“I-” she stopped. Her voice died in her throat. She had to swallow before she could continue and even then, she sounded weak. “Then why are you avoiding me?”

“I can’t stand to look at you, Granger.” He broke and, sure enough, his eyes clung to the ground. She could see the way his face crumpled, “because I need you. I fucking need you.”

The words froze in the air. They seemed to echo, then stop completely, so tangible Hermione could almost read them, or reach out and take them before they dissipated into the October mist forever.

“Malfoy, look at me,” said Hermione. He didn’t want to. She could see the pain in his face, weighing his lips down, making the veins in his neck bulge. She moved closer to him, slowly so he had all the time in the world to move away, but when he didn’t, Hermione stepped in front of him and took hold of his face in her hands. He was so cold. She could feel the chill of his skin through her gloves. Malfoy was crying. She whispered, “This is life now. We’re broken but we’re trying to fix ourselves. I know you’re scared. You don’t have to admit it out loud, but I want you to know that I will stay with you through the darkness. I see you, Draco Malfoy, and I won’t let you fall.”


	9. Snowfall

** Chapter Nine- Snowfall **

Draco Malfoy needed Hermione Granger.

It was something he didn’t like to admit to himself, even though the fact sometimes crept up on him. He found himself looking for her in a crowd, craning his neck to catch sight of that bird’s nest on top of her head, or straining to hear a snippet of her voice. The only lessons he could bear without twitching and tapping his fingers against his leg, counting down the seconds until the bell would ring and he could leave, were the ones she was in. He started eating breakfast in the Great Hall simply because he knew she’d be there too. He made sure she was eating. If Blaise wouldn’t let him starve to death, then he’d be damned if he let Granger escape the same way.

So yes, Draco needed Hermione Granger.

Blaise knew it. He would be talking and when he realised his friend wasn’t listening in the slightest, he would stop and sigh or smirk. Draco would look away hastily at that smirk. But at least he no longer tried to sneak food onto his plate or interrogate him on his sleeping patterns, or lack thereof.

Hell, Hermione Granger knew it. She was significantly less smug about the fact since the words had been wrenched from his unwilling lips and seemed, if anything, just as embarrassed about the whole situation as he was.

Still, Draco refused to recognise that the stubborn Gryffindor, who’d slapped him so hard in Third Year he’d had to ask Pansy to cover the bruise up with her charmed makeup, was likely the only thing helping him sleep.

She found him sitting on the banking of the lake that evening. She would find him in the oddest places, slipping beside him, that Draco had come to wait for her presence, whether he wanted it or not. Now, Granger sat beside him on the grass, rubbing her hands together and blowing them.

She commented numbly, “Snow will be falling soon.”

Draco glanced at her, then followed her gaze, craning back his neck to take in the heavy, grey clouds and naked trees. He hadn’t noticed but he supposed it was cold. The dying sun dropped behind the trees another inch. “Yes. I suppose it will be.”

“It’s so unfair,” she said and he wondered if she was aware that her voice trembled. “Why does life get to move on as though nothing has happened?”

Draco sighed. “Because that’s what life does, Granger.”

“What about us?” she asked.

“The ones that can’t keep up get swept under the rug and left behind. We don’t get the choice.”

She was quiet. It was something he wasn’t really used to: Hermione Granger silent. Whatever relief it might have ignited in him before was doused in the discomfort it sparked now. He didn’t like it.

“Can you keep up?”

If she found the question odd, she didn’t show it. She simply stared out across the lake, eyebrows pulled together in a small frown, as if she was truly contemplating her answer.

Eventually, she said, “I’m not sure. I think so.”

They were quiet for a few more moments and then her eyes slid sideways to him and she said, “Can you?”

Draco didn’t reply.

They let the sunset soak over them, catching their breaths when they froze in the air, caress their sweet and tangible youth, and allow them to feel as if they would retain that youth forever.

“I think you can,” she said quietly.

Draco felt the anger flare up inside of him and before he could stop himself, he snapped, “Oh, because you know me so well, Granger?”

The way her eyes flashed made him instantly want to grapple for the words and shove them back down his throat. He sighed, looking away.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. Hermione’s jaw clenched regardless and she stared stonily at the water.

“Actually no,” she said after a while. “I think you can keep up with the way life carries on because you’re talking to me. If you were lost, if you’d been brushed under the rug as you so put it, you’d have long disappeared by now. But here you are. You’re still fighting, Draco. That has to count for something… I think it counts for everything.”

Draco felt his heart stop. Maybe it sped up. He wasn’t sure because it had been so long since it had done anything of the sort. He didn’t look at her.

She shifted beside him, drawing her knees up under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. She was wearing a Muggle padded coat, zipped to her neck, and jeans. It was too cold for October. Maybe the world was in mourning too. Granger blew some hair from her face. “Are we friends yet?”

Draco opened his mouth and he wanted to laugh because the question exasperated him so much and it was easier than grappling for an answer. He shook his head. “No, Granger. We’re not friends.”

He ignored the feeling of her shoulders slumping and couldn’t stop himself from adding, whether it was to spare her or himself, “You don’t want me as a friend.”

“I think I should be allowed to decide that for myself,” Granger sniffed, and he recognised that self-righteous tilt to her voice and rolled his eyes. Despite it all, it made him smile slightly. “You know, I don’t understand why you continue to raise your heckles when I tell you I believe in you. Is my belief really such a bad thing?”

Draco swallowed. It felt like there was shrapnel in his throat. He shook his head a little. “I don’t deserve it, Granger.”

“Oh be quiet,” she snapped. In his surprise, he turned to look at her. Granger was scowling at him. Her cheeks were pink, a bit fuller than they had been at the start of term, and her eyes sparked. She looked livelier, almost like the Granger he remembered. For a few seconds, they stared at one another before she huffed and rolled her eyes. “You _are_ difficult.”

Draco forgot everything else, spluttering indignantly. “Excuse _you_.”

Granger raised her eyebrows. “I just don’t understand your problem. The war is- it’s over, Malfoy. The war is over and the monster is dead. You need to move on with your life and stop acting like you’ve given up-“

“You don’t believe that, Granger,” he said, and he cursed himself for not being able to look at her. The way she’d tripped over the words proved she didn’t truly believe in what she was preaching. He screwed his eyes shut. He knew that if he looked at her, he’d shatter and weep and he couldn’t do either of those things because it was all he seemed to do lately and he feared that if he started again, he’d never stop.

She shut her mouth. “What?”

“That the war is over,” said Draco. “You, more than anyone, know it’s not. And if the monsters are really dead... why am I still alive?”

He spat out that last bit. He’d held it in his mouth for so long it tasted bitter and sour and Draco heard the way his voice cracked. Hermione looked at him, lips pursed tightly. Her eyes were furious and hot. She said firmly, "You are not a monster, Draco Malfoy."

The words felt to make physical contact with him, puncturing his gut, and he clenched his jaw shut to stop himself from breaking because his throat trembled. All he could was scoff because anything else would give him away. He tried to stand up, throwing out, “I’m done with this conversation,” but Granger, the stupid bint, reached for him, touching his arm and it burned. He recoiled, falling back onto the grass.

“You don’t even know me!” he spat. He made sure the distance between them stayed. Granger had frozen in the air, watching him with her mouth parted as though the breath had stopped from her lips. She made him furious. She made him _feel_ \- “You just showed up out of the blue after not giving a damn for years, expecting me to care, expecting me to make an effort to live when I just want to fucking die! Can’t you see, Granger? Just let me die. I’m not another one of your pity cases. I don’t need your pity, Granger! You don’t know half the things I’ve done-“

“Draco-“ she was crying. Draco’s heart definitely stopped at the sound of his name, tumbling from her lips in that desperate and ragged way. She pleaded it. Begged. “But I don’t want you to die.”

His face crumpled. He gave in. He couldn’t hold on any longer. He started crying, and it hurt. Merlin, it hurt. She’d taken off her mittens and she touched his hand. It seared where their skin met. She flicked her hair back and he caught the smell of her strawberry shampoo. Her breath was quick and sharp on the air around him. He couldn’t escape her. “I know you won’t want to hear this but you need to hear it, okay? Sometimes you don’t need to beg for redemption. Sometimes it comes and finds you.”

Draco didn’t move. He was still half sprawled on the banking of the Black Lake, feeling the wetness of the October dew seep into his clothes because he’d forgotten to cast a warming and drying charm. His body was hot though. He was breathing hard and his eyes were wet and the castle behind him and the forest behind her were all faded, shapes against the white expanse of sky but _she_ \- she was there, close and real, lips pink like peonies in spring, reaching out to him and Draco could have sobbed in relief had he deserved her. He’d have given anything to deserve her.

"I don't deserve redemption," he said and his voice was now low, ragged and broken; a fractured sob that not even the approaching stars could hear.

"Maybe not, but I'm giving it to you anyway.” Granger stared at him, his hands were clasped tightly in hers, and he was finally shattering. It was like he had been strong for so long, too long, and now his anguish was pouring out of him: against all odds, Hermione Granger was there to catch it. “You're forgiven, Draco. Whether you feel you deserve to be or not, I forgive you."

Draco stared at her then, with a little bit of disbelief tainting his red-rimmed eyes. Hermione stroked his cheek, wiping away his tears, and she smiled a small smile. He laid back, melted into the grass, staring up at the darkening sky as it bleached white in the absence of light and the shadows shot through the clouds. Granger moved.

“Stay,” Draco whispered. His hand was clutching hers so hard that both their knuckles had turned white. It cost him everything to plead with her. “Please stay with me.”

“Of course.”

He heard her swallow and she moved to lay next to him. They stayed on the banking for a little while longer, hands tightly together between them, until the first stars blinked open their bleary eyes and the first snow started to fall.


	10. Fire and Powder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!!! This story is certainly not abandoned! I've just been very very busy recently- I applied to uni!!!!! Scary times... But then I received a really lovely review and I found the inspiration to write this and the next chapter is well on the way too so hopefully, there shouldn't be too long of a wait before the next update! Thank you for your continued support and love!

** Chapter Ten- Fire and Powder **

He knew the exact moment she entered the Room of Requirement. If the way the door slammed to a close wasn’t enough, then it might have been the clicking of her shoes, or the soft chuntering that grew louder the closer she got, but Draco thought the most telling sign was the way the air changed, almost like it did before a storm.

He raised his eyebrows, slid a bit of spare paper to keep his page, and looked up in time to see Hermione Granger bursting over to him. She stomped closer, fell onto the settee opposite, and huffed.

“Happy as ever, Granger,” he commented.

She glared at him and pushed her frazzled curls away from her face. “Don’t. I am not in the mood, Malfoy.”

She’d been calling him by his first time for a few weeks now, and his surname rolling from her tongue reminded him of normalcy, of a time Before. He wasn’t sure he really preferred it. She must be vexed for her to revert back.

Still, Draco almost smirked. His cheeks were hollow, the crescents under his eyes black, and he felt his ribs dig into his flesh every time he shifted, but the smirk on his lips settled like a blanket around his shoulders, like an old skin. Granger’s hair was sparking. “What’s got your knickers in a twist?”

“Talk about my knickers one more time and I’ll hex you so hard you’ll end up in Hogsmeade,” she rummaged through her bag and hauled out a heavy book and a few scrolls of parchment.

Without another word, she started working. The Room had procured some sort of study: there were two black leather settees in the centre of the space, a coffee table reclined between them and a carpet stretched under their feet; a fire crackled contently in the hearth and bookshelves stood tall and stacked, like a forest around them. He didn’t remember there being this many bookshelves when he walked in. Bloody Granger.

Speaking of, Draco watched her. He drummed his fingers on the cover of the book he had been reading, but found that he’d lost interest entirely. “Why are you annoyed?”

Granger’s shoulders tensed. She mumbled (and he only just caught her through that mass of hair), “I’m not.”

He scoffed. “Spare me.”

Her head shot up and she glared at him and snapped, “Mind your own business.”

Draco clicked his tongue, flicking his eyes away. “And here, I thought we were becoming friends.”

He knew that would get to her and had to fight the smirk that was slinking its way back along his lips. In the corner of his eye, he caught her hair whip her face as she looked at him. Granger cleared her throat. She shuffled in her seat.

“Harry and Ron are working over Halloween,” she said haltingly. “They said they’d try to visit but it doesn’t sound like they have the time anymore. Something about a massive workload and a looming deadline. They’ve probably had all summer to do it and just procrastinated.”

“Massive workload,” Draco murmured. “Sounds like overcompensating.”

She snorted. He looked at her in surprise and his lips quirked in a smile. “Something like that,” she agreed. Granger looked up at him. Her eyes fell on the book. “What are you reading?”

“I’m surprised it took you so long to ask,” he remarked drolly.

She scowled.

He picked the book up and flipped her the front cover so she could see for herself. An eyebrow rose.

“How... Muggle.”

Draco swallowed. He felt a slight niggle at the tone of her voice. “What’s wrong with that?”

Granger’s eyes darted to his face and she said, “Nothing! I just didn’t peg you as a Shakespeare enthusiast.”

“He’s a talented playwright.”

“He’s Muggle.”

“I’m not a bloody fool, Granger. I’m well aware of his heritage.”

“I’m simply-“

“He’s historically responsible for modern language!” exclaimed Draco. “It’s not Muggle Studies. It’s- cultural!”

“Of course!” agreed Granger. She hesitated. There was something sly about the way her eyes slid away and back. “I just didn’t expect a romance.”

“It’s a tale of conflict and warring families,” he snapped.

“It’s a love story, Malfoy,” she said and she was smiling now. He pursed his lips. He knew he couldn’t win.

She returned her attention to her work and Draco turned the book back around and carried on reading. He read the same page three times before he knew it wasn’t going to sink in.

“You should read Anthony and Cleopatra next, if you like love stories,” said Granger after a moment. Incensed, Draco’s head shot to her and he noticed the smile still curling her lips. He twitched.

“It’s not a love story, Granger. It’s got violence in it-“

“Oh Draco,” she sighed, throwing her hair back to regard him. She looked bemused. “It’s the greatest love story of all time!”

He pulled a face and mumbled, “Well, it’s not a very good one. They both die.”

“No love story is complete without a bit of struggle,” said Granger. “It’s not worth it if it’s not something you’re willing to fight for.”

Draco looked at her. He cleared his throat and said, “You sound like Potter.”

He thought he managed to scrape the disdain from his voice.

Granger snorted. Perhaps not. “Haven’t you got over that yet?”

Draco frowned. He knew exactly what she was talking about, but he just shrugged. “Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

“Yes, well. If it makes you feel any better,” she said. There was a secretive smile curling her lips and he suspected her friends had hurt her more than she dared to admit in their misplaced priorities. “This would drive Harry and Ron mental.”

Draco dropped his eyes to the book. “What would?”

“Our friendship,” she said. She was flushed. He wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been paying enough attention to her before or if her cheeks just lit up even pinker and that threw everything about her into sharp definition. Granger’s eyes were wide, ringed with gold. There were freckles over the bridge of her nose and her cardigan buttons were all mixed up, buttoned incorrectly. She must’ve come running from somewhere because she was glowing with a sweet mixture of cold and exertion and her hair was flecked with melting snow.

He pursed his lips but didn’t correct her, looking down.

“You haven’t told them?”

Draco kept his eyes on the page but he hadn’t read a word since she’d walked in. He tried to keep his voice neutral. Granger shot him a look that implied he was an idiot asking an idiotic question she shouldn’t have to answer.

“Draco, we meet in a secret room and leave ten minutes between both arriving and leaving. If you don’t want to be seen with me at Hogwarts, I’m not telling my friends a hundred miles away. It would be a waste of ink and they’d panic for no reason, thinking I’d gone mad!”

There was a moment of silence. Draco wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination or if the fire really did shrink and douse the room in a frigid coldness. He forced himself to ask it. It tasted bitter and scraped the roof of his mouth-

“Because I’m a Death Eater?”

“Because you’re the boy their childhood revolves around besting!” she exclaimed, dismissing him so effortlessly he remembered quite suddenly how easy it was to breathe. “Honestly! Sometimes I think the only things they ever moaned about were Quidditch and Malfoy! It was borderline obsessive!”

Draco could feel his face heat up. He frowned and put his book to the side, shrugging casually. “I can’t remember Potter really getting mentioned in my conversations.”

Granger looked at him like she knew what a liar he was but she hummed and let him have it, this time.

Her looks always disarmed him; it was like she could see through him, through all his disguises, through the shroud he had draped over himself that clogged his lungs and threatened to choke him. She made him feel naked but for the first time, like he could breathe again.

They met here most days, often throughout lunch and up till curfew on an evening. Sometimes, they did homework. Rarely, they spoke. Mostly they just read.

“We should go to Hogsmeade this weekend,” she said suddenly. “I haven’t been for years.”

Draco’s head whipped up and he blinked at her. “What?”

“I’m starting to go a little stir-crazy,” she laughed. “I think it would be nice to get out-“

She had ducked her head to continue working and Draco was glad she couldn’t see his face. He closed his eyes briefly and his throat went dry again.

“I can’t, Granger.”

“Of course you can, Draco.” Granger threw her hair back and declared, “Don’t you feel trapped here?”

She didn’t notice the way his face drained of colour. “Granger, you don’t-“

“We don’t have to stay for long, only an hour or so-“

“No, that’s not what-“

“-and then you can go back to moping. Come on, Draco, just one day-“

_“I can’t!”_

He slammed the book down on the arm of the settee and shifted his body and his ankle band whacked against the leg of the table. Blinking.

Granger closed her mouth.

Draco closed his eyes.

“I can’t, Granger,” he said. His voice was heavy. The air was silent and heavier still. “I can’t leave the castle grounds.”

“What do you mean?” she asked in a small voice. Her eyes finally focused on him.

He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to see the way her face changed, like he’d let her down. “It’s part of the agreement. I get to wait here pending my trial instead of- instead of Azkaban. But I can’t leave. It’s the same sort of imprisonment. Just a different prison.”

“You’re not a criminal!” she fumed. Her voice shook and Draco wasn’t sure if it was anger or tears. “What do they think is going to happen-!”

“The last time I went to Hogsmeade, I cursed Katie Bell.” He spoke so resignedly, rubbing the bridge of his nose, staring at the floor. His shoes were scuffed. “I hate it but their fears aren’t exactly unfounded.”

Granger just stared at him. Her lips were pursed, her nostrils flared, her eyes wet.

“Those were different circumstances.”

“Not as far as the Ministry is concerned,” said Draco, picking back up his book and smoothing out the flexed spine. He pretended to read. He knew she was still thinking about it. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was staring at the grains in the table. They sat in silence for a very long time, until the bookshelves cast looming shadows and the fire had died down to an ember.

“Do you have the date for your trial yet?”

Draco swallowed. He turned the page.

“No.”

He refocused on the words, the lie seeping through his body, turning his blood into lead. He ended up reading the same line over and over and over:

_‘These violent delights have violent ends_

_And in their triumph die, like fire and powder_

_Which, as they kiss, **consume.’**_

He did have the date of his trial, tucked under his pillow, and in the crevice of his mind, for safekeeping.

5th June. His birthday.


	11. Ashes

** Chapter Eleven- Ashes **

Hermione didn’t know if she was mad or desperate or maybe a little bit of both. Whatever it was, she stood before the stone gargoyle at the foot of the Head’s office, twisting her hands and wondering if it wouldn’t be better if she just listened for once and refrained from getting involved in other people’s business.

But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Sometimes, when he was reading and she was sure he wouldn’t notice, Hermione would watch Draco Malfoy. That meant that she noticed his little ticks, the twitch in his hand, the sporadic tightness of his lips as he twisted them, the way his foot would tap rhythmically and repetitively against the floor, tick-tocking, counting down the time until his trial-

He was going stir crazy locked up in this castle. He needed freedom. At least, a taste of it. Just to keep him going.

She sucked her cheeks in, wringing her hands. The Headmistress of Hogwarts was the only person Hermione trusted to ask for help, the only one she thought might care.

Stealing another moment, she inhaled deeply and before she could stall a second more, said, “Lemon Drops!”

Though the password came out as a rush of frantic air, the stone gargoyle obediently leapt aside, revealing the hidden staircase. Hermione swallowed, clenched and unclenched her fists by her side, and started up the steps. She knocked as soon as she reached the top, knowing her nerve might break if she hesitated again.

“Come in.”

Hermione cracked the door open and slid into the room. The office hadn’t changed much since before the war. The walls were still lined with shelves stacked high of all sorts of odd thingumabobs, devices with contractable arms and dials and buttons, plants that had to be chained to keep them in check but which nevertheless invaded other shelves and curled its way around picture frames holding certificates, vials and bottles of potions of all different colours, candles that never stopped burning, old books, peeling, leather-bound, thousands of pages long, withered globes of countries Hermione had never heard of, historical artefacts, daggers, jewels and dream catchers. There were still all the portraits of the past Headteachers and, joining them in his prime place above the desk, was the kindly face of Albus Dumbledore, blue eyes twinkling over crescent shaped glasses. Hermione’s smile was breathless and teary. He folded his fingers, leaned forward slightly, and winked at her.

“Miss Granger.”

She spun around, wiping at her face.

“What a pleasant surprise.”

Professor McGonagall stood on the dais, ancient book in her arms, green robes as straight and immaculate as always, hat pointed to the sky. She looked older than the woman who had greeted her all those years ago in front of the Great Hall, much older, and tireder too. There were bags under her eyes and more wrinkles in her lips, like she’d shrivelled them one too many times. But she was still her Head of House, and Hermione felt a rush of fondness for the older witch.

“Professor,” she said. There was something about seeing her former teacher that brought a tender recollection of normalcy, a reminder she was safe and she was home. Hermione swallowed. “How are you?”

Bemused, McGonagall came down to meet her. She rounded the desk, skirting Fawkes’ empty perch, and sat in the chair, motioning for Hermione to do the same. She paused, then sat in the chair opposite her Headmistress.

“As well as ever, Miss Granger.” The older woman peered over her glasses and it didn’t have quite the same affect as the wizard sitting behind her in his golden frame. Her eyes were too beady, inquisitively sharp, though no less warm. “I was pleased to see your name amongst the returning Eighth Years.”

Hermione smiled. Tucked a curl behind her ear. “It’s nice to be back. I forgot how much I missed it.”

McGonagall hummed. Her eyes softened as they roamed the office, tracing the high alcoves, lingering on the empty perch. “I had hoped it wouldn’t feel haunted. We wished it to feel like it used to, like the safest fortress in the world.” There was a wistful sigh in her voice.

Hermione winced a little. “It’s a difficult feat when you know the fortress was conquered.”

“But rebuilt from the rubble,” her professor’s eyes shone, and Hermione was sure they were tears.

“I’m really grateful to be back, Professor,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.”

McGonagall’s lips twisted in a secretive smile. When she spoke, it was so matter-of-factly that her thick Scottish accent clipped each of her words. “I have no doubt you would have taught the Ministry how to deal with the aftermath of war. Kingsley Shacklebolt might be a good Minister, but he can’t seem to keep everyone and thing from spilling over. The new world is going to be built on inconsistencies and misfiled paperwork.”

Hermione heard the irritability leak into her voice, and she remembered a headline she’d read a few days ago at breakfast:

**Chaos at the Ministry: Reforms or Revolts?**

“Conservative reactions always follow war. The fear never truly goes away,” said Hermione. “If anything, it intensifies. Just think about Grindelwald. As soon as he was defeated, the Ministry had drafted restrictive laws and organised raids that ended up lasting years. The Wizarding World ended up more broken than repaired.”

“And in opposition to conservatism, there are the liberals who advocate peace in the chasm,” replied McGonagall. She pursed her lips.

Hermione laughed a little. “I think we could do with some peace right about now.”

“Miss Granger, I’m inclined to agree with you.”

She smiled.

Before she could say anything else, there was a cry and through the window, riding on the setting sun, soared a bird of the most brilliant orange, fire-soaked red, and gold. Hermione wasn’t sure she could really believe it. Something light settled in her soul and she thought the last ray of hope might as well have just swept through the sky and landed on the pane.

Fawkes sat proudly on the windowsill.

“I thought-“ Hermione stumbled for sense. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. “I thought he was gone forever.”

McGonagall’s face softened and she rose from her chair and beckoned him onto his perch. He acquiesced, swooping over and offering the older woman his head to stroke.

Hermione blinked, remembering the last time she had seen him, hearing his final song in her head. She stood from the chair and moved over slowly, careful not to frighten him.

“Not gone,” said McGonagall, running her finger over the plumes of the Phoenix’s head. “He visits from time to time. Usually, he comes here to die.”

Hermione looked at her, lips parted. Her eyes strayed back to the bird, and she held out her hand so he could press his forehead against her knuckle.

“He comes home,” a deep voice said, and Hermione jumped. The Phoenix crooned gently. Dumbledore smiled from his portrait above the desk. “It is said, Miss Granger, in my family, that a Phoenix appears when a Dumbledore is in need. Fawkes came to me when I was desperate, when I didn’t know how to save myself, never mind anyone else. Extraordinary things, Phoenixes. Exceptionally nuanced and tuned into human emotion.”

Hermione watched him. There was something almost pained in his eyes, his fingers clasped together tighter, as if to stop himself from reaching out, knowing he could never breach the gap to greet his old friend. Fawkes cried, ruffling his feathers. A few of them fell to the tray and sparked.

“What do you need, Professor?” asked Hermione. A tear slipped down her cheek. “Perhaps I can help-“

Dumbledore titled his head forward, eyes peering and crinkled. There was so much reassurance in those eyes that Hermione understood why Harry had trusted him so blindly, allowed him to hold his entire life in his wizened, charred hand.

“Miss Granger, you didn’t come here to have biscuits and discuss Ministry reforms,” was all he said. His lips quirked.

McGonagall was frowning deeply. She tutted. “Albus, what on earth-?”

But before she could chastise the former Headmaster, Fawkes sang a little tune, coaxing her hand open, pressing his head into Hermione’s palm. She felt something wet drip down her skin.

Fawkes lifted his head, tipped his beak to the ceiling. The flames engulfed him from the very tips of his wings, stretching up his back and swallowing his narrow head. Orange, then red, reaching up, then dying down until there was nothing but ash and feather-

They stared at the tray.

Hermione took a shaky breath but it stopped in her throat when the ash started to move.

The chick slowly craned it’s neck, chirping, and Hermione wiped at her eyes and laughed. Fawkes chirped again.

Dumbledore made a soft noise.

“Born from the ashes,” Hermione murmured. Fawkes cooed gently, and tilted his head and fixed her with a surprisingly astute look. Blinking. It was like the bird was staring into her soul and yet- there was a twinkle in those dark eyes that reminded Hermione of the man in the frame. She felt obliged to say, “Professor, what do you know about Draco Malfoy?”

McGonagall looked at her sharply. “Miss Granger?”

“He’s waiting for his trial, Professor. He’s been accused of accessory to murder, of terrorism. The Ministry thinks he’s a criminal but he’s- he’s an eighteen year old boy. I- I came to see you because I need your help. I need your help in proving he’s innocent.”

McGonagall shook her head. “Miss Granger, forgive me for my bluntness, but why do you care?”

Hermione inhaled sharply. She grimaced.

“Draco and I, well,” she broke off. She didn’t know why her face felt so hot. “We’ve- I suppose we’ve struck up a sort of friendship. Not really a friendship, more a- civil agreement. I’ve gotten to know him really quite well, Professor and, well, I’d like to take him to Hogsmeade. I think it would do him good.

“You might think I’m crazy, Professor,” said Hermione quickly before the Headmistress could get a word in. “Honestly, I’m wondering a bit myself... But I’ve seen Draco Malfoy’s soul, and it’s not black and it’s certainly not evil. He’s scared. And he needs help.”

McGonagall, the woman Hermione had admired as soon as she’d set eyes on her in First Year, pursed her lips and regarded her sharply. Eventually, she said in her curt voice, “What do you propose I do, Miss Granger? I’m not as powerful as Albus Dumbledore. I can’t influence the Ministry.”

Hermione hurriedly said, “I’m not asking you to! I was simply hoping you could write to ask if Malfoy could have the court’s permission to go into Hogsmeade for a few hours. I’ll stay with him the whole time and if it makes everyone feel more comfortable, I’ll keep him under Harry’s cloak. So they don’t know he’s there. He can’t escape either way, he’s got a tracker on his ankle. Purely to avoid causing a scene.” Hermione paused. She said, in a shakier voice, “I think he needs this, Professor. I think maybe his life might depend on it.”

McGonagall’s lips had become shrivelled prunes and her eyebrows were furrowed deeply, before she said, “I’ll see what can be done, Miss Granger, but I can’t promise you anything.”

There was a firework, or maybe a rocket, that went off in Hermione’s stomach and she just nodded. “Of course, Professor. Thank you.”

She turned to leave.

“Miss Granger.”

Hermione stopped and looked back.

McGonagall was still stroking the bird, and Fawkes stretched his charred, little wings, craning his neck and preening. His shed feathers were a brilliant orange around him, like the explosion of the sun as it set in the evening, or autumn leaves as the world readied itself for the oncoming winter.

“Yes, Professor?”

“Be careful,” she said. Her eyes were clear and sharp.

Hermione swallowed. “Harry told me, a long time ago, that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be. I was given that liberty. I need to make sure Malfoy is given the same.”

McGonagall didn’t reply, but her eyes ducked to the desk and her lips quirked slightly. Hermione nodded to herself and left, but she heard the Headmistress sigh float through the walls.

“It’s the right thing to do, Minerva,” she heard Dumbledore’s portrait say.

McGonagall grumbled. “That doesn’t mean it will be easy, Albus. You often forget what’s feasible.”

“Perhaps.” Hermione heard the amusement in his voice. “But Miss Granger may be the only one who can save him-“


	12. Running Blood

** Chapter Twelve- Running Blood **

It was three weeks before Hermione heard anything back from Professor McGonagall.

Snow had fallen silently one night and carpeted the grounds ever since, wrapping the shivering trees in their seasonal coats, and forcing the students to wear their thickest cloaks at all times. The winter chill would creep its way into the castle, through the nooks and crannies in the walls, nibbling at exposed flesh, striking goosebumps. Hermione made sure she kept her earmuffs and gloves with her everywhere she went, just in case her fingers started to go numb. Sometimes, they would hurt so much, she couldn’t even write her notes in class. Winter had arrived, and it had come with a vengeance.

Throughout it all, however, there was something quiet and serene about it. The Black Lake glistened with a thin sheen of dark ice. Snowmen would pop up between lessons only to be ceremoniously destroyed the day after. Fires crackled in every hearth and there was a buzz in the corridors in the lead-up to Christmas. Hermione wasn’t sure she really shared in their excitement. She had nowhere to go. Her parents would be thrilled to see her but she didn’t know if she could stomach a skiing holiday to France. Not this year. Harry and Ron still hadn’t made their minds up about their plans. There were only four weeks left! It irked her to no end that they were slipshod enough to leave all their preparations till the last minute.

Most likely, Hermione thought, she would stay at Hogwarts. The quiet in the library might do her some good and she was acutely aware that this would be her last Christmas at the castle.

She wasn’t sure what Malfoy would do. She wasn’t sure if he had a home to go back to, or if the Ministry had seized it and warded it off to raid for their investigation in building a case against the Malfoy’s. She wasn’t sure what had happened to his mother for he hadn’t mentioned her once since their conversation about nightmares and spoon tricks in the kitchen. His father was locked up in Azkaban. There was no point pondering on that charge.

Still, Malfoy didn’t say and Hermione didn’t ask. They met every week, tried to meet most nights but their workload was increasing and they needed the library more and more. Hermione had half the mind to suggest they just study together, but she knew it would make him draw deeper into himself and the thought of being seen in public with him, and the rumours that would follow, had made her grimace and shut the thought down immediately. Every time she saw his sterile, blond hair through a bookshelf, she would divert her eyes and pretend to be interested in the book above her head.

It wasn’t that she was ashamed of him. Hermione was always quick to tell that to herself. It would simply complicate- whatever it was they had.

And sometimes, it was nice to have a secret. Something to keep to herself. Something untouchable.

It was a Wednesday morning. Hermione had been trying to eat breakfast in the Great Hall more often, not least because Ginny kept making pointed comments about putting a tracking spell on her at all times to make sure she was looking after herself. Hermione rolled her eyes but neglected to point out that she only turned up because she had to make sure a certain stubborn Slytherin was looking after _him_ self.

He wasn’t at Breakfast. Hermione had noticed as soon as she’d entered the Great Hall. There was a spot next to Blaise Zabini, on the very end of the table, suspiciously empty. She caught Zabini’s eye, and he glanced at the space beside him and back at her, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged, turning away, but her heart raced.

“Morning, sleepy head,” said Neville, grinning up at her as she slid onto the bench beside him. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” she replied, filling her plate. “How are you? How’s your Herbology project coming along?”

His face lit up. He’d long grown out of the small, timid First Year she had jinxed to keep quiet; his cheeks had hollowed, his hair darkened, his torso lengthening and slimming so he now towered above her. “Great! In fact, Sprout says she might be able to take me on as an apprentice if I get the grades! But don’t tell anyone! I don’t think she’s spoken to McGonagall about it yet.”

Hermione beamed at him. “Neville, that’s incredible!”

He still blushed like a First Year.

Hermione felt a little bit more rejuvenated after learning that. There was truly nobody who deserved it more but she couldn’t help but wonder why life was rushing and organising itself for everybody else, but crawling by for her. Harry and Ron already had their futures lined up for them. Ginny was looking to be scouted straight after Hogwarts for some Quidditch team or another. Everything seemed to be falling into place but Hermione could only see a chasm ahead of her, an empty space she had no idea how to fill, never mind what with. As a child, she always assumed she’d become a teacher, but part of her longed to get out of her childhood, to escape the repetitiveness and triviality of regurgitating a book; Defence lost its appeal when she’d been forced to rely on it to save her life. Maybe something political, something that could change the world. But British politics was a mess. How much change could one person make?

She was just buttering her toast when the owl swooped from overhead, clutching a bulky package. It dropped the parcel onto her lap, but didn’t have time to slow down and clattered to a stop further along the table, sending goblets of juice spilling onto people’s plates. Neville’s beans were flooded with Pumpkin juice.

Hermione flashed him an apologetic smile, coaxing the clumsy thing closer and offering it her crust. It nipped her finger slightly.

When it was distracted, she tucked the package closer onto her lap, and quickly pulled the scroll from its leg. She threw the last bit of crust along the table when the bird squawked at her. There was no majesty to the owl and its feathers were all ruffled and flattened. It had the look of a wild and senile thing, with cloudy grey eyes. She didn’t recognise it. Hermione pulled the string and unfurled the parchment. The smile pulled at her lips before she could stop it.

 

 

_Hermione,_

_Does this mean you’re getting up to mischief without us?_

_It is with heavy heart that I send the Map. When I couldn’t concentrate, I would pull it out and watch you pace from one side of the library to the next. I swear I could hear your ranting through the paper._

_I miss you._

_Harry x_

_PS: Ron says he loves you but you need to stop eating in the kitchens. Apparently they don’t have all the good puddings down there and only keep the leftovers. I think that’s his way of telling you to eat properly and look after yourself. Sometimes, he’d watch the Map with me too._

 

 

She laughed a little, smothering it with her hand. She closed her eyes and a tear leaked out. Hermione clutched the package closer to her. She could feel the sharp corners of the Map and felt a rush of remembrance for her friends. The owl must’ve been a Ministry one.

“He’s got a point, you know.”

Hermione glanced up and noticed Ginny had sidled her way closer. She offered her a smile.

“As much as my idiotic older brother lacks sense, he sometimes manages to hit the nail on the head,” continued Ginny, grabbing an apple. It was as red as her hair.

“You’re cruel,” Hermione laughed.

Ginny grinned and some juice trickled down her chin. “It’s not cruel if it’s true.”

“That’s not how it works!”

“He really does have a point,” said Ginny, ignoring her. “They hardly keep any puddings in the kitchen. House Elves don’t really have a sweet tooth.”

Hermione looked at her friend knowingly. “Ginny, I’m fine. I eat every meal and go to sleep at an appropriate time. I even slept in this morning!”

There was only a smidge of sarcasm in her voice and Ginny narrowed her eyes. She tried to look threatening but Hermione found very few things terrifying nowadays.

“I’m joking, Ginevra,” she said, nudging her shoulder. “But I _am_ fine. I think I’ve got back into the swing of things.”

Ginny hummed but her scowl never softened. She said loftily, “And it’s got nothing to do with the mystery person you’re meeting on an evening?”

She’d asked her question just as Hermione had gone for a swig of her drink and she choked a little. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth. “ _What?_ Who-? I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about.”

Ginny snorted. “Harry isn’t the only one spying, you know. When you kept disappearing, I owled him to ask if he could use the Map. He said you disappeared from the Map entirely. Every day at the same time, more or less. The only place that isn’t on the Map is the Room of Requirement, and the only reason you’d sneak off- and lie about it, might I add- to a place that can’t be physically or magically traced is because you were meeting someone you don’t want me to know about.”

Ginny smiled brightly and took another bite of her apple. Hermione gaped then shook her head, prepared to deny it, then closed her mouth because she realised she looked like a fish. In the end, she just shot her friend a glare and muttered, “You’re much too sly for your own good.”

Ginny’s smile widened. “So I’m right?”

Hermione winced. “Yes but-“

“Oh don’t worry,” Ginny leaned away, finishing her apple. “I’m not going to pry any further. You’ll end up telling me eventually.”

Hermione wondered whether she was right. She shoved the package containing the Map and cloak in her bag and pretended not to hear her.

The morning post had come and gone by the time the last owl soared through the open window. It was the polar opposite of the Ministry bird the boys had used. There was an elegance in the strong wing span and sharp eye, and it circled once above before dropping down and landing in front of her. No goblets were toppled. It offered her its leg and Hermione slipped the parchment from the string. The eagle owl didn’t wait around for a reward but took off, disappearing out through the same window it had swept in by.

Hermione’s heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought it might break through and follow the bird into the sky. She quickly excused herself, grabbing her bag and barely registering Ginny’s confused questioning. There was some part of her that knew what the letter was, and if the way the eagle owl had circled the teachers’ table was anything to go by, she knew who it was from.

Sure enough, when Hermione found an empty corridor, she opened the letter:

 

 

_Miss Granger,_

_I have had to fight quite diligently and ferociously but the Ministry have agreed to the terms. They also have a few of their own; they state that he cannot be out for any longer than three hours, within daylight. Failure to be reported back in Hogwarts by the required time will result in immediate transfer to Azkaban Prison._

_Whilst seeming harsh, they are far more reasonable terms than I anticipated._

_On the day of your choosing, report to me in the morning and I will modify the Ministry band._

_Yours,_

  1. _McGonagall_



 

 

Hermione read it again. She read it three times. Four. Five only when she realised she’d stopped breathing.

She’d done it. An astounded laugh forced its way from her throat. It struck her that she needed to find Malfoy.

She knew exactly where he’d be.

Not a moment later, Hermine bounded onto the seventh floor corridor, using the bannister of the moving staircase to haul her on faster, just before it dislodged and started to move again. She didn’t have time to pace three times, practically sprinting back and forth, that by the time she tumbled into the Room, her chest was heaving.

Malfoy was sitting on the green leather settee, book in hand, legs propped up on the coffee table. He glanced over the top of his page. Raised an eyebrow.

“Did you run here?”

Hermione had to stop and breathe. The letter was clenched in her fist. She doubled over, panting, pulling a face at the condescension in his voice. _“No.”_

Malfoy pursed his lips. “Merlin only knows how you survived on the run, Granger.”

He turned back to his book.

Hermione just gaped at him. _The ungrateful sod-_

She moved quickly again, and with purpose, pushing his feet off the table so she could stand directly in front of him. He spluttered his indignation and looked up at her.

“Granger,” he said, deadpan. Her name was laced with tension. “Why are you acting like a mad woman?”

Wordlessly, she held the letter out for him. Malfoy kept his eyes on her. “What’s this?”

“Read it and find out,” replied Hermione, wiggling it a little.

He held her gaze for a second longer, before reaching for the parchment and unfolding it. She watched his eyes skim the page. His face flickered then shut down completely.

Malfoy looked back at her. “I’ll ask again, what’s this?”

Hermione inhaled deeply, suppressing her smile but she was sure it shone from her lips regardless. She said, “After our conversation a few weeks ago, about Hogsmeade, I went to see McGonagall and told her that I thought it would help if-”

“Help what?” His eyes were still fixed on her but there was a chord in his neck that made her falter.

“Help- well, help you,” she said lamely.

Malfoy stood abruptly, shoving the letter in her hand, and began walking towards the door. Hermione frowned.

“Draco-?”

He whirled on her. “I don’t need your fucking help, Granger!”

He was nearly at the door but he stormed towards her; the fire died in the hearth, blown out, the walls seemed to shrink, Hermione took an instinctive step backwards, hitting the arm of the chair. Malfoy was a breath away from her. His eyes were wide, that sliver of blue around his iris darkening, nostrils flaring, lips pink and split.  

“I do not need your help. Are you listening? I put up with your company, Granger. I’ve let you see me _cry_ and _break_ \- but I am not one of your sad, pity cases. I refuse to be, Granger.”

She felt every hot, spitting syllable on her cheeks. She felt the warmth of his body close to hers. She wanted to push him away but she didn’t think he’d come back if he walked out that door.

Hermione forced herself to swallow and keep her eyes on him. The chair arm was digging into the back of her thighs. “Draco,” she breathed. “That’s not how I meant it.”

It was like he remembered who he was, and he rolled his shoulders back. He didn’t move away and Hermione glanced down at the little space between them. She could feel his knees in her thighs, his sharp hips, the flat plane of his chest. She put a hand on his arm to gently make some room.

“When we were on the run,” she began, licking her cracked lips. His eyes flicked down to follow the action, then fixed back on her eyes. “We camped out in places I’d visited with my parents; forests, villages, maybe places I’d been on school trips. At every location, I’d put up as many wards as I knew, around the tent, around the perimeter. We started the three of us but the Horcrux in the locket drove Ron to walking out, so it was just Harry and I for a while. It was the most trapped I’ve ever been. We couldn’t leave, we couldn’t even go a metre from the tent. I felt like I was suffocating slowly. I know what it’s like to be trapped, Draco. I didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t breathe, knowing there was something I could do to help.”

He stared at her for a very long time. Her hand was still on his chest and he reached up, tentatively, to hold her arm. Hermione flinched. Nobody ever touched her there. His fingers were cold over the cuts his aunt had carved into her flesh. 

She licked her lips again and this time, his eyes didn’t flick back up to hers. Hermione swallowed.

“You have to wear the cloak,” she said quietly. “Harry’s invisibility cloak, that is. And stay with me for the three hours. So it’s not too bad, not really. Not unless you’re adverse to my company...”

Malfoy stared at her lips. He was still so close to her. She could feel every one of his breaths, from the moment it was born in his chest to when it died in the sigh between them.

“What do you say?”

She tilted her head when he didn’t reply.

“Draco?”

He reached up suddenly and wiped at her lip with the pad of his thumb. Hermione froze. Her palm was still splayed across his chest and his hand was holding her, touching her skin, touching the place she’d been branded a-

He pulled his thumb away and she saw it was speckled with her blood.

“Have you always bitten your lip raw?” asked Malfoy. She hadn’t even realised she’d been chewing her bottom lip and they both stared at the blood. It was a deep red, only a drop.

Hermione winced. “Only when I’m nervous.”

He looked at her then, something amused, confused and carefully veiled in the furrow of his eyebrows. “I make you nervous?”

She watched him unsurely. Tried to chuckle. “You’ve always made me nervous. I used to punch you but I can’t very well do that now.”

“No,” he agreed. “Now, you try to help me.”

“You say that like its worse.”

“It might be.” He paused. His voice was little more than a murmur. “Why are you nervous, Hermione?”

She didn’t take her eyes off of him.

_Because I’m not sure I can help you._

Hermione leaned in close and he gave away his surprise in the way his eyes widened fractionally, and he leaned back. “What if I lose you in Hogsmeade and you run away to the Shrieking Shack and become a fugitive? They might think I’m complicit.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed slightly and he dropped his hand, wiping his thumb, her blood, on his shirt. He finally moved away, retrieving his book which he’d dropped on the settee. Hermione still hadn’t moved from the chair arm when he said, “Granger, you became complicit the moment you asked me if I was okay.”

She didn’t point out to him that she became invested long before then. Her arm was still warm, burning, where he’d touched her and her lip was salty with blood.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I think this is really the most intimate they’ve ever gotten which is strange to say it’s a Dramione fic, 12 chapters in. I hope you all love a slow burn!!! I do love this dynamic. It’s reminding me of Avery x Hermione in The Light, which was just a DREAM to write. Up and down, sensitive to even the slightest bit of tension or change. I never know what turns and twists each chapter is going to take. It is a joy. AS IS receiving your reviews and lovely comments!!! They absolutely make my day and I can never, ever express my gratitude to you all for believing in me and my writing, for sticking with me despite the hiatuses, for never failing to make me smile. Thank you. Next chapter: HOGSMEADE!


	13. Milk with an Expiry Date of Three Hours

** Chapter Thirteen- Milk with an Expiry Date of Three Hours **

They walked along the corridor in silence. Hermione patted the bag at her side, feeling reassurance in the cushion of the cloak and slight rustle the Map made. It hadn’t been one of the terms (she doubted McGonagall, nor the Ministry, even knew of its existence) but it made her feel better to know they were safe, rather than sorry, that she could whip it out at any moment and conserve their secret for just a little bit longer. Her conversation with Ginny had been playing on her mind. If the girl had been spying on her, had seen her disappear off the Map, had she also seen Malfoy disappear too? Had she connected the dots, whatever those dots were? Somehow, for some reason, Hermione figured they were undetected, not least because she didn’t think Ginny had the kind of temperament that would put up with her best friend meeting a former Death Eater, who also happened to be awaiting his trial for murder and terrorism, in an intracable room every night. She supposed the absurdity of the situation was an advantage after all. The moment they were discovered, all hell would break loose.

Malfoy stopped suddenly and Hermione nearly walked into the back of him.

“Draco, what-?”

He swallowed. “Is this a good idea, Granger?”

Hermione blinked at him. Her thoughts trailed off. “What?”

Malfoy sighed, running a hand through his hair. He was dressed in black slacks and a black trench coat, dark green scarf tucked around his neck. She knew she must look like a child next to him, with her pink duffle coat, white bobble hat and matching mittens. An eyebrow raised when he’d seen her coming towards him that morning, and Hermione’s cheeks had momentarily flushed as bright as her coat. He looked like the Malfoy she knew, the one who cared for his appearance, with every strand of hair falling back into place on his head. Hermione almost hadn’t the heart to remind him he’d be invisible for the duration of their trip to Hogsmeade.

“What if someone sees me?” he asked.

“The Cloak isn’t as fickle as a simple charm,” she said. “It’s highly unlikely.”

Malfoy nodded. It was too rushed, too harried that she didn’t think he had really heard her.

Hermione moved in front of him and, before she could overthink it, took his hand in hers. They were both wearing gloves but Malfoy lurched as though she’d scorched him. She didn’t let go. “If you don’t want to go, we can go to the Room instead. It’s meant to be liberating, not another form of entrapment.”

Malfoy looked at her. His eyes were wide. After a moment, he shook his head slightly, detangling their hands and said, “You’re right. Besides, I could do with a Firewhiskey.”

He carried on walking and Hermione started at his sudden pace, skipping a little to catch back up with him. She rolled her eyes when they finally fell back into step and said, “Would it really have killed you to just leave it at, ‘You’re right’?”

There was a ghost of his old smirk playing at his lips, and Hermione pondered on the fact that it filled her with a warmth she never would have assumed it could. Hogwarts was empty. Not another student passed them by, most playing out in the snow or having already made their way down to Hogsmeade after breakfast earlier that morning. Each empty corridor they made it down added to the relief she felt lighten her chest. They continued until they reached the Headmistress’ office.

Hermione cleared her throat, hugging her bag to her body, and announced, “Rhubarb and Custard.”

The stone gargoyle leapt to the side and one by one, the bricks behind him cracked and shifted, raining dust, before the entire wall was slowly rotated to reveal the ascending staircase. She glanced at Malfoy.

“Rhubarb and-?” He began, nonplussed.

Hermione couldn’t stifle her grin. “It’s a Muggle sweet,” she explained. “I’ll buy you some one day.”

Malfoy said nothing so she began to climb the staircase, motioning for him to follow her. When they reached the top, she paused and she saw Malfoy steal a breath. She let him steal another before she knocked.

“Come in.”

The two entered.

McGonagall sat at her desk, marking what looked like a particularly horrifically sized pile of Transfiguration essays. Hermione noticed the perch beside her was empty. Glancing up at them, over the rims of her spectacles, the Headmistress greeted them. “Ah, Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy.”

“Good morning, Professor.” Hermione allowed her eyes to flick to the frame overlooking the desk, only to find it empty too. She quenched any disappointment she might’ve felt.

“I trust you remember the terms,” asked McGonagall, sharp and beady eyes fixed on them both as she stood and made her way closer.

Hermione nodded. She patted her bag. “I have the Cloak.”

“Three hours,” McGonagall reminded. She stopped in front of Malfoy, who couldn’t even look her in the eye. “Mr Malfoy, if you could show me the band.”

Her voice was softer than it had been a moment ago, though not considerably so, not enough for him to notice. Hermione had warned her he didn’t take well to pity. McGonagall had made a laugh, at the back of her throat, and said he had nothing to worry about from her, that the Scottish were adverse to the stuff.

Malfoy gulped and his hand shook (though they all pretended not to notice) as he lifted his trouser leg. The band was a thin loop of magic, encased in black so as to be untouchable, though Hermione doubted anyone would ever touch it willingly. It shivered with the tension and capacity of undulated magic, sparking out then recoiling as it hit its own prison. Hermione wondered what spell it was, what made it so volatile and if it was inclined to changing spirit for whatever reasons. Did it reflect Malfoy’s mood? Or was it just violent to remind the wearer what was coming?

McGonagall didn’t so much as falter. Unfazed, she knelt down and said, “Hold very still, Mr Malfoy. Permissionary spells are complex magic.”

Hermione frowned. “Permissionary spells, Professor?”

Malfoy shot her a look, preceded by a slight roll of his eyes. He murmured, “You really couldn’t help yourself, could you, Granger?”

She had half the mind to shove him just to see what happened when the spell went wrong.

McGonagall ignored the pair of them. “Spells that have been individually designed and placed and therefore unable to be modified by anyone else, without the original castor’s explicit permission. Fortunately, I knew the Wizengamot Witch who cast this specific spell. She, how do you children say it, owed me one.”

Without another word, McGonagall raised her wand and started muttering. The magic dripped from the end of her wand, orange and voracious, before tentatively groping towards Malfoy’s band. Hermione could see every chord in his body tighten in an effort to keep still. She wondered if a body bind hex wouldn’t have been more effective.

Whatever the Headmistress was doing, it was working. Slowly, her fiery, orange magic was absorbed by the band, sinking into the blue light, mixing with it, then replacing it, diving around his ankle, stretching out until it pulsed. The band changed colour from black, staining to a grey. Temporarily freeing him.

Malfoy exhaled shakily, almost like he felt it. Tasted it on the air perhaps. Freedom.

But only for three hours.

McGonagall stood. She straightened her robes and pointed her hat and said, “I’ll be notified when you return back on Hogwarts grounds. I’ll need you to come to me so I can change it back so as to not alarm the Wizengamot.” Pausing, she fixed him with a curt but gentle smile. “Enjoy your day in Hogsmeade, Mr Malfoy.”

Malfoy didn’t seem to know what to do. He floundered for a second, before Hermione stepped in and said, “Thank you, Professor. We will.”

The sound of her voice seemed to wrench him back into reality and he nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Professor, I-“

But he choked on the words, and McGonagall must’ve known what he was going to say anyway for when she waved them on and told them they’d better not waste any more time in the castle, there was a thickness in her voice.

They left the office, descending the stairs, and the gargoyle jumped back into place behind them as soon as they stumbled out onto the corridor. Hermione looked at Malfoy. He raised an eyebrow.

“How does freedom taste?”

“Like warm milk with an expiry date of three hours.”

“What an apt analogy,” she said dryly.

Hermione wasted no time in opening her bag and hauling out the Cloak. It was unbelievably soft under her fingers, smelling of adventure and danger and the thrill of curfew. She had to stop herself from inhaling it because she knew the look Malfoy would give her and could almost hear his refusal to wear anything that smelt even remotely of ‘Potter.’

She handed it to him. “You don’t have to put it on yet, but better to get it out now whilst no one is here.”

Malfoy nodded, taking the Cloak from her. He ran his fingers over it, and though he tried desperately to hide it from her, Hermione glimpsed the flash of awe in his eyes.

“Where did he get this?” Malfoy asked. He couldn’t tamper the breathlessness in his voice either.

Hermione shrugged and started walking, knowing he’d follow her and catch up if she did. “Family heirloom. Some people get the Chamber of Secrets, Harry inherited an Invisibility Cloak.”

Although much more concentrated on where he was going, Malfoy’s fingers still ran idly over the material bunched in his hands. Cautiously. Delicately. As if it could pull apart at any moment. “You know,” he said. “Whenever my mother used to read The Tale of the Three Brothers to me, I always used to think that I’d want the Cloak. Never mind the Wand, or the Stone. I always saw value in the Cloak.”

Hermione didn’t look at him. It was rare when he spoke about anything even relatively personal that she daren’t be too bold, just in case he shut down on her. “How so?”

She felt his eyes flick to her. “The idea of disappearing was very appealing to me. To be able to escape anything, even Death. I thought that was the ultimate display of power.”

“It can be Summoned,” said Hermione instantly. She didn’t know why it was so important that she said it. Malfoy looked at her properly now. “The Cloak. You can use Accio on it. So you can’t use it to escape anything in reality, not really.”

Malfoy’s voice gave way to his sneer. “Don’t worry, Granger. I’m not going to do a runner on you. It’s just a fairytale.”

She glanced sideways at him. He was staring stonily ahead. Biting back a wince, she hastened to say, “I agree with you though. The Cloak is the only one even remotely useful.”

Malfoy frowned. Hook. Hermione knew she’d poked at his intellectual curiosity, all but inviting a debate. Line. She waited for him to take the bait.

It was a moment before he replied.

“What do you mean?”

And sinker.

“Well,” she said, as they turned right onto the moving staircase. Her hand clutched the bannister in case it decided to be temperamental and move at the last minute. “The Wand was fallible. Not only could it be taken from you, but it marked out a great, big, flashing target on your back. You were asking for Death, being the Master of the Elder Wand. Look what happened to Grindelwald. Look what happened to Snape.”

She forgot about his affinity with their old Potions Master and felt a twinge of regret when she saw him wince. Hermione continued quickly, “Harry had the Stone for a while, you know. He used it. To see his parents. That was shortly before Voldemort killed him.”

From his quick bursting reactions, she could tell her frankness affected him but there was no point skirting around the issue at hand. This was why he liked the Cloak, thought Hermione, so he could dig his head in the sand when things got honest.

“He told me about it afterwards and I’ve thought about it a lot. He said they coaxed him to die, told him it was ‘quicker and easier than falling asleep.’ That doesn’t sound like something your family would say now, does it? I came to a conclusion, well, no, it’s nothing more than a theory, really, and based on little to no practical evidence-“

He coughed and she shut up and refocused.

“But anyway- I wondered if the Stone didn’t just supply a manifestation of the dead channelling Death’s voice. His whole purpose of creating the Stone was to entice the Second Brother to him. I think the Stone is merely a facade, Death trying to persuade you to kill yourself so he doesn’t have to do it himself. The ultimate victory.

“So by default, and when you consider it was the only successful Hallow insofar as allowing the Third Brother to die on his own terms, the Cloak has to come out on top.”

“Granger.” In all honesty, Hermione had almost forgotten he was there. They’d made it to the foyer now, and the Great doors were cracked open slightly, spilling a smidge of light onto the stone floor, but largely combatting the wintry world outside. She turned to look at him. Though deadpan, Hermione saw the quirk of his lips. “Congratulations. You just sucked all of the fun out of my childhood.”

Her mouth dropped open and she smacked him. He leapt away, incensed.

“Granger! You’re not a bloody cat! Stop swiping me!”

She did so but not because he asked. “Put the Cloak on, Ferret. Then I don’t have to see your stupid grin.”

Malfoy recoiled and whatever amusement had curled his lips dropped. His eye twitched. “Don’t call me that, Granger,” he said darkly.

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Or what?”

He didn’t reply, draping the Cloak around himself and disappearing in an instant. She swallowed nervously. “Draco?”

Suddenly, her scarf was yanked and wrapped repeatedly around her neck and her hat was wrenched down over her eyes. The shriek that left her lips was small and frustrated. Though she couldn’t see him, she heard his sniggering and located a damn good kick to what she guessed was his shin by his excessive use of expletives.

“Serves you right,” said Hermione smugly. “Now come on, your three hours will be up before they’ve even started.”

Malfoy kept quiet at that but she had no doubt that he was simply cursing her under his breath now, instead. She pushed open the castle doors and they were enveloped in light.


	14. Granger

** Chapter Fourteen- Granger **

It seemed to be a habit of theirs but they walked quietly, trekking their way down the well-worn and thus, rather slippery slope, down across the grounds. Though she was wearing her winter boots, Hermione kept losing her footing, clutching onto the tufts of frozen grass and muttering high-pitched pleas to whatever entity was listening. It was made all the worse for the snowballs that occasionally pistoled towards them and she had no time nor security to find her wand and shield them both from attack. One came hurtling at her head and she screamed, ducking, her feet taken from underneath her as the dirt crumbled away, grappling for purchase, for something to cling onto-

“Fuck. Granger! Will you-!” she heard Malfoy grumble, his breath hot on her forehead, but she knew her hold on him was firm and she hadn’t stopped skidding and was therefore unwilling to let go. Hermione felt something haul her to her feet and she gripped at thin air. It was only when she was firmly planted back on flat ground that she released his arm, muttering a reluctant thank you and they continued on their way. Hermione, more cautiously than before.

She couldn’t see him but she was certain that Malfoy stopped for a moment when they reached the Hogwarts gates. Hermione heard a sharp intake of breath, though it could have been the wind whistling through her hair. Either way, she didn’t comment, and carried on walking, sneakily glancing behind her, watching his footsteps in the snow, to make sure he was following. There was something reassuring about the fleeting trail they created, and the way the snow would kiss the imprints to cover them over.

The walk down to the village seemed quicker than she imagined, though Hermione had a feeling that time would sprint today, for it was usually what time did when one wanted it to do quite the opposite. Even against the onslaught of wind that chilled her to her bones and the snow that flecked her cheeks and congealed on her eyelashes, there was something warm that bloomed in her chest; Hogsmeade was everything she remembered it to be, and more. As they got closer, the snow gave way to an emerging row of white-wrapped buildings; the roofs overhung, their mismatched brickwork tucked away under a blanket of winter for as long as the snow persisted, golden walls rarely peeking out if any of the snow collapsed from the windowpanes and flower baskets. Hanging signs danced wildly in the wind, clanging and creaking, revealing the odd letter or emblem. Students and villagers, protected by their winter robes, hats and scarfs, weaved in and out of shops, whose doors would fling open and spill a puddle of enticing heat onto the frost-bitten ground. A well-trodden path snaked deeper into the village, though snowflakes continued to fall, smoothing it over with fresh powdery mounds that the students were all too happy to jump in.

Hermione breathed in the cold air. It had been so long since she’d felt that familiar warmth of normalcy, but it embraced her now, that sobering blast of freedom. She hadn’t realised she’d stopped walking completely until she heard Malfoy hiss her name.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Hermione led him through the village, breathing in the smell of roast potatoes from The Three Broomsticks, distracted by the laughter and sparks and whizzing bolts of light from the joke shop, not stopping until they’d made it past every shop on the main street and had weaved their way past darkened windows and boarded up doors, falling into the empty shelter of The Hog’s Head pub.

She heard Malfoy make a derisive noise but ignored him, smiling at the barkeep (who was certainly not Aberforth, what with his perspiring bald head and bulbous moustache, pipe poking from between the gaps in his teeth), and making her way to a table in the corner. Hermione sat down, biting back a smirk at the hesitant and inconspicuous scraping of the chair opposite her as it was pulled out and drawn in again.

“Interesting venue,” he remarked under his breath.

“There’s method in my madness, Malfoy,” muttered Hermione.

She could hear the smirk in his voice. “Isn’t there always, Granger?”

Hermione chose not to comment, slipping her wand from out her bag and murmuring the warding spells she’d used whilst on the run. There weren’t many other patrons in the pub; two older gentlemen in roughened leather coats were playing cards and gambling for a considerable amount of money if the pile between them was anything to go by, a woman with deep wrinkles seemed to be having tea with her cat, and a bunch of Seventh Years, their ties multi-coloured, their heads down, looked like they were studying for their Christmas mock NEWTS.

Her eyes flicked away from them all, and she could feel her hair starting to frizz, the magic ebbing from her and making the air around them pulse, surrounding them in a bubble. She only lowered her wand when the bubble muffled out the sound of everything else and she momentarily felt like she’d been submerged entirely underwater.

Hermione turned back. “You can take the Cloak off now.”

Silence. Then, a whispered, _“What?”_

“Take the Cloak off.”

“Granger-”

“I’ve warded this corner. No one can see us,” she said. Then looked at him demandingly. “Why do you think I chose this pub over The Three Broomsticks? It certainly wasn’t on principle of design. There are less people here who can pick up on my magical signature. They probably don’t even recognise half the wards I’ve used.”

He didn’t react immediately and Hermione continued to stare into empty space when-

Malfoy appeared suddenly. His hair was tussled and half his shoulder was still missing and it was a minute later that he combed his fingers through his hair and pulled the Cloak the rest of the way off. His cheeks were pink. He swallowed.

Hermione waited as his eyes roved the pub. She knew it was dingy and the floorboards were curving upwards and the wooden panelling on the walls was falling off, but the circular table she’d chosen was just behind the table next to the window (she didn’t want to risk sitting too closely) and she’d made sure she was sitting with her back to the rest of Hogsmeade so that Malfoy could watch the world pass by over her head and feel a part of the way the snow fell.

Sure enough, his eyes snagged just past her and he watched the way life drifted by through the window. Hermione let him have it. She stood and his eyes barely flicked to her when she said, “I’ll get us some drinks,” before he nodded once and they flicked back again.

Hermione slipped away, leaning against the bar then recoiling when she felt something sticky on her arm. She flashed a hasty grin at the barkeep and said, “A Butterbeer and a Firewhiskey, please.”

He raised an eyebrow.

She smiled guiltily at him, cheeks flushing. “It’s been a long week.”

The barkeep huffed, chewing on his pipe, which lit itself and started to puff. He nevertheless accepted her money and got to work on her order. Returning to their table a few minutes later, she placed the drinks on the coasters, noticing that her sudden appearance seemed to wrench Malfoy from whatever had so transfixed his attention.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a swig, and he didn’t even wince.

Hermione grimaced, wrapping her hands around her glass. “I don’t know how you can drink that stuff.”

“You grow numb to it.”

She sipped her drink. “That sounds healthy.”

Malfoy snorted. “Don’t lecture me, Granger.”

He stopped then, rummaging around in his pocket. The chill from outside had snaked its way into the pub, and they kept their coats buttoned up to their chins, though they’d removed everything else. Malfoy dropped some coins on the table. Hermione blinked.

“What’s this?”

“I’m not a Weasley,” he sneered. “I can afford to buy my own drinks.”

Her eye twitched but she pursed her lips, pushing the galleons back to him. “Will you _stop_ being so offended at everything! Let me buy you a drink.”

Malfoy stared at her. After a moment, as Hermione sipped her Butterbeer to show him it wasn’t up for debate, he cupped the coins back up and slid them into his pocket. “The next one is on me then, Granger.”

“Very well. I’ll hold you to that.” She put her glass back down on its coaster, licking her lips. Malfoy snorted. “What?”

He kept quiet, eyebrows raised, eyes dancing.

Reproachfully, Hermione demanded, “What are you giggling at?”

Malfoy was full-on grinning, and she forgot her frustration with him just for a moment because he looked so different, so carefree, almost happy. He traced his upper lip and she scrambled to wipe her sleeve across her face. Her ears went red.

“You’ve missed a spot,” said Malfoy, and his voice was light with his mirth. He reached over the table and wiped the foam from the corner of her lip, then on his jacket.

“Thanks.”

She watched him curiously, her mortification dying down, as he continued to stare out the window, swigging his whiskey every now and then. She watched the snow fall in his eyes and melt in his hair. It was a situation she never thought she’d find herself in, sitting, having a drink with the boy who had tormented her for years. They’d both been in a war, though you wouldn’t know it, looking at them. Hermione’s hands were clean and small. There were no scars snaking between her fingers. She was sleeping and eating a little bit better recently so she knew she didn’t look haunted; she recognised herself in the mirror again. Draco looked whole, too. His skin was perfect alabaster, carved like stone, like a sculptor had painstakingly shaved the curvature of his throat and jaw to create just the perfect amount of shadow. If he was a statue, Draco Malfoy was a colossal monument of carefully crafted lines and sinews, impassive and cold, and he was full, fit to bursting inside-out, with colourful, burning feeling. Hermione had seen it. He was not as cold as he made himself out to be.

Malfoy frowned at her, then said, “To say you’re the one who forces your company on me-“

She jumped at the sudden sound of his voice, and some of her Butterbeer sloshed over the side of the sup, and snorted. “ _Forces!_ ”

He ignored her. “You sure do look at me with some contempt, Granger.”

Hermione pressed her lips into a line, and her eyes dropped to her hands. She folded her fingers together on the table.

“I _don’t_ -“

“You look at me like you don’t recognise me,” he said.

She forced herself to look him in the eye because he deserved her honesty. He was staring at her, grey eyes piercing.

“You’re a very different person to the one that Moody turned into a ferret.” Hermione paused, then added, “Deservedly so, by the way.”

Malfoy made a disdainful noise, slapping the comment away with a flick of his wrist. He levelled his gaze on her suddenly. It made her shift in her seat, but she tilted her chin just a little higher and met him straight on. Malfoy took a swig of his drink.

“Am I still annoyingly charming?”

The dryness of his voice made Hermione flounder for a second, because the joke was so misplaced. She huffed out a laugh.

“You got the annoying part right.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m wounded,” he said. Another swig. “You’re not so charming yourself, you know, Granger.”

“And yet you keep coming back.”

A single fine eyebrow raised. The bottle froze between the table and his lips.

“Curiosity.”

“Killed the cat.”

“But satisfaction brought it back,” he countered, and there was a ghost of a smirk that made her stop. She couldn’t hold back a small smile of her own.

“You don’t ever seem to be overly satisfied with my company,” said Hermione. She felt betrayed at the smidge of hurt in her voice.

Malfoy’s smirk dropped frighteningly quickly and she felt her stomach sink. He downed some more of his Firewhiskey. Grimacing, he slammed the bottle down on the table and said, “Anything is a step up from my father, Granger, even you.”

“Have you seen him?” she asked. “Since the war.”

Malfoy shifted in his seat, regarding his drink curiously. His tongue flicked out nervously. “Once.”

Hermione swallowed, nodding slowly. She didn’t want to pry but part of her was burning up to ask-

“It was just after he got his sentence,” Malfoy continued, eyeing her as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. She kept his gaze and he seemed to cling onto the resolute look in her eyes. There was no pity there. She made sure of it. “My mother was still waiting for her trial. We were allowed to watch. The Wizengamot took three minutes. Three. That’s all my father’s life was worth before they sentenced him. We were allowed to say goodbye and I haven’t seen him since.”

Hermione was desperate to ask about his mother but she sealed her lips closed. His voice had broken upon simply saying the word.

She owed him some honesty now. She drew in the form of her Butterbeer. “Remember what I told you about my parents?” she asked. Malfoy nodded once. “I Obliviated them the day after I returned from my Sixth Year. I knew they wouldn’t be safe after Dumbledore-“ He flinched. She stopped. “But I wanted one more day with them. To say goodbye. We didn’t do anything special, we just sat together and watched the telly that night and then the following morning I stood outside the door and listened to them. They bickered about using the same spoon for my mum’s tea that my dad used for his coffee, and something on the news, and what to add to the practise.” Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. “I couldn’t say goodbye. Not properly. I knew I’d lose my nerve. So I erased myself from their memories and sent them off to Australia. They’d always wanted to go to Sydney. They planned on moving there, a long time ago, but then I was born and, I suppose life got in the way. There was never a right moment after that.”

Malfoy was staring at her. “I never knew before-“

She smiled ruefully. “That was the point.”

“Have you tried to find them?” he asked.

Hermione shook her head and her curls whipped her cheeks. “I haven’t had time.” She let out a derisive laugh. “That makes me sound awful, doesn’t it?”

Malfoy’s gaze dropped to the table. “No,” he said. “Life gets in the way, sometimes.”

He offered her a small smile. Hermione returned it.

“How bizarre,” she said, “that this is probably the most at peace I’ve felt in years.”

There was a smirk blossoming in the corner of Malfoy’s lips, growing and twining so as to encompass his entire face, flowering in his eyes. “In a dingy old pub, in the company of a Death Eater who you hate, my, Granger, you must have had some shitty years.”

Hermione knew he was joking but she could only stare at him. Puzzled, she said, “I don’t hate you.”

Malfoy’s smirk froze. He became, quite suddenly, very interested in his drink. His silence prickled her.

“Do you think I hate you?”

 He didn’t reply straight away. Then, he said, without looking at her, “I didn’t want to assume.”

“Draco, when I brought you to the Hospital Wing, I sat with you all night. You must know that. You asked if I was staying and when I said yes, it wasn’t just so you wouldn’t throw up your medicine. I meant I was staying for it all. For now, for later, for your trial. Until you tell me to leave, and even then, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of me. Trust me, Malfoy, I’m not easy to get rid of-”

“Call me Draco,” he said. Malfoy looked at her. His eyes were light and bright and blue. “I prefer it when you call me by my name.”

Hermione gaped. She closed her mouth and nodded. “Okay.”

A few moments later, she added, “You can call me Hermione. If you’d like.”

Malfoy started to reply then paused. His eyes flicked to hers. “You’re Granger to me,” he said finally, and it didn’t leave her disappointed like she thought it would. Instead, it made her smile.

They finished their drinks soon after, draining them and savouring the last drop. Hermione noticed Malfoy took his time, taking small sips, holding it in his mouth before swallowing, sometimes. She wondered if he was allowed to drink alcohol. Probably not, but this was his three hours of freedom. He had not expired yet. So the idea of breaking the law worried her considerably less than she would have thought.

Hermione checked her watch and when she saw the time, she felt her heart clench a little. “We should probably get going,” she told him, knowing her voice was far too chirpy and trying not to cringe at the sound of it. He didn’t outwardly react, but she suspected he was deflating inside.

As they got up to leave, Hermione left a few coins on the table, catching Malfoy’s frown. She scowled at him. “What?”

“What are you doing?” he asked, lip curling.

“I’m leaving a tip!”

“He didn’t do anything, Granger.”

“He didn’t judge me when I came in here alone and ordered an alcoholic drink at three o’clock in the afternoon! It will buy him a new pipe,” she argued.

Malfoy looked at her, lips pressed together and then he sighed as though she was the biggest pain in his arse, and dived into his pocket to throw some of his own coins down on the table. Hermione couldn’t hide her surprise.

“Now he can buy some new teeth,” he said snidely.

He was stung, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t stop the smile from creeping across her face as she grabbed her coat, flinging it round her back to try and navigate her arms into their sleeves. It was easier said than done and she kept missing the corresponding hole. Fumbling with her coat, she shoved her woolly hat between her teeth so she had her hands free. The sleeve evaded her arm again and she let out a frustrated mewl.

Malfoy glanced at her and said, “Oh, honestly, Granger,” and impatiently grabbed her coat from behind her, holding it out so she could slide it on. He spun her round once the coat was safely on her person, snatched her hat from her teeth and shoved it on her head, so far it covered her eyes and tickled her nose. Hermione huffed.

She adjusted it so she could glare at him. He raised his eyebrows at her, as if daring her to say something snarky.

“I take it back,” she said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

Malfoy bit out a laugh, and Hermione noticed that when he was amused, the crinkles by his eyes would deepen and cut into the porcelain of his grey face. It made him look young again. “I’m glad to hear it, Granger. Now, move.”

He gave her elbow a little push before throwing the Cloak over himself and disappearing. Hermione disarmed the wards and they left the warm, if a little dingy, pub to brave the biting wind outside.

The snow had started up again.

It was odd to be alone again, to not physically see him by her side-

“Don’t look like that, Granger,” his voice was biting but nervous.

“Like what?” she blinked.

“Like you’re possessed!”

Hermione huffed. “Well I can’t see you! What am I supposed to-?”

Suddenly, something grabbed her hand and she jumped, wrenching her arm away and stumbling backwards. A shriek left her lips, undignified, before she could stop it. “Draco, what-!”

“It was just an idea,” he grumbled. He sounded further away. “So you weren’t second-guessing where I was...”

Hermione’s mouth dropped and she realised what he’d been trying to do. Hesitantly, she reached out her hand, outstretching her fingers.

There was a moment where nothing happened-

Then, Malfoy took her hand. Their fingers threaded together. It was practical, Hermione assured herself, nodding, pretending the warmth of his hand through their gloves didn’t make her heart beat faster. More practical.

“It’s not contempt,” she said quickly. Despite the frost on her nose, Hermione felt her face go hot. His fingers seemed to tighten around hers.

For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to reply and then, between the gasping wind and echoing laughs from lower down the village, there came an, _“Oh?”_

“The way I look at you,” she clarified. “I mean, that’s not to say I look at you any specific way. I just mean I really don’t… hate you. Not at all. Not even a little.”

Hermione cringed. There was quiet again. Not quiet because the world was much too noisy for the pair of them but quiet from him.

Then, Malfoy’s voice. “I don’t hate you either, Granger.”

Hermione nodded. “Lovely. Lovely jubbly. Pleased to clear that up.”

They started walking.

“It’s just-“ She really needed to stop talking and she was, moreover, acutely aware of the fact and yet, despite it all, she carried on. “I really thought I did. Even that first night. I remembered how cruel you’d been, how petty and nasty, and I tried to convince myself I still hated you. It’s easier. It would’ve been easier... But I just couldn’t equate who you were with the same person that told me to drink jasmine tea to help me sleep.”

She was glad she couldn’t see him but it made her heart beat faster in anticipation. She wondered if he could feel it in her fingers. After a moment or two, he said, “Did it help?”

Hermione frowned. “What?”

“The jasmine.”

“Oh. Sometimes it does. Sometimes the nightmares come anyway. I think they do as they please.”

He huffed a laugh, his breath was warm against her cheek. “Tends to be the case.”

They continued walking, Hermione’s arm tucked into her side so she wouldn’t look like she was holding hands with an invisible boy whose pulse she swore she could feel in her fingertips. The snow had softened now. It waltzed down from the sky, dipping and twirling, kissing their cheeks, their eyelashes, their lips. She wondered vaguely what his eyes would look like, ringed with snowflakes.

The sky had started to drop dark, and a deep dusk clung to the horizon, weighing down the clouds. It was almost like a light-switch, the sun drifting below the lake, causing the distant castle to light up, one window by one. They wandered around the village as the last motley throng of students made their way back up to Hogwarts. Hermione was glad to be left alone; their footprints were stark on the pathway now, marked out in the slush, and she couldn’t risk them being found out with only thirty minutes or so left.

Time had gone, as she had predicted, treacherously quickly.

“Have you had a good day?” she asked him, murmuring out of the corner of her mouth so it wouldn’t look like she was talking to herself. That was the last thing she needed.

Hermione couldn’t tell if she imagined it, but she thought he might’ve squeezed her hand. “It’s been the best day I’ve had in a long time.”

And a moment later, “And you?”

She nodded, then realised she couldn’t possibly know if he was looking at her, so cleared her throat and said, “Yes.” She sniffed. “But I think I’ll probably have a cold tomorrow.”

His scoff was far too loud to be inconspicuous and she clutched his hand so tightly she felt his bones crunch. He whispered a curse.

“That’s just pathetic, Granger. It’s not even that cold!”

Hermione spluttered. “Excuse _you_! It’s freezing! I don’t think I can feel my hands!”

“I’d wager you can,” Malfoy grumbled. “You broke at least two of my fingers a minute ago.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

They stopped at the very edge of the village, where the pathway wound up to the mountains, and the lake shimmered at their feet. Hermione thought it was funny how the world could be condensed so easily, made so simple that it took your breath away, when everything else was such a confusion.

“I think this is my favourite place in the whole world,” she said.

“Not the library?” was the droll remark she got in reply.

Hermione hummed in thought. “Good point. Second favourite, then.”

She grinned but Malfoy was quiet. She glanced sideways, then remembered she couldn’t see him. It was disheartening to see the trees and lake and mountains instead.

“I wish I could stay here forever,” he said finally.

Hermione swallowed. Hesitantly, she leaned into where she thought he might be stood. He froze, then melted, and his arm against hers was solid and real and tangible.

“Me too,” she whispered.

But alas, they couldn’t. They waited until the sun had split and burst, exploding through the forest, skating the lake, and christening the mountain peaks, before it sunk lower and doused itself completely. Then, they set off back to the castle, in the falling night. Their steps were slow, meandering, wandering, taking their sweet time because time was limited and they were running out of it. She stuck to Malfoy’s pace, swinging their hands between them now that no one was there to think her crazy. Hermione wasn’t sure if he enjoyed it but he didn’t stop her and he didn’t make a sound, so she squeezed his fingers and continued doing it. It calmed her nerves.

Just before they entered the castle, they stopped. Hermione didn’t know who stopped first, but they stood and let the night slip over them. One of them squeezed the others’ hand. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath-

The chatter of dinner sobered them, the doors closing behind them as soon as they’d stepped into the Great Hall foyer. Their day had expired.

“We need to check in with McGonagall,” said Hermione, chewing her lip, looking at the floor. “To tell her we’re back and- put your band back.”

Malfoy took the Cloak off and appeared in front of her. Hermione felt obliged to look at him. His hair was ruffled, his nose and cheeks slightly pink. He looked alive. He handed her back the Cloak, reluctantly, and she knew it must feel like handing back his freedom.

She felt a yawn coming and tried to smother it quickly. He noticed anyway, if the quirk of his lips was anything to go by. “Go to dinner, Granger,” he said. “Then get an early night. You look like you need it.”

Affronted, she glowered at him, but another yawn was threatening to escape her. She swallowed it and said, “Don’t be silly, Draco. I’ll come with you.”

Hermione started forwards but he reached out and held her shoulder. She stopped and stared at him. He was still smiling. Malfoy said, “Granger. Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

He dropped his arm. Unconvinced, she tried to make a joke. “I warned you I’m not that easy to get rid of-”

Malfoy shook his head, but turned around and began walking away from her. “I’ll hex you if you follow me. Get an early night.”

She watched him walk away, in half the mind to run after him. His shoulders were straighter, she noticed. He stood taller. There was almost his old arrogance in each step.

Hermione didn’t think that would have ever made her smile.

“Goodnight, Draco,” she called after him.

She heard the smile in his voice. “Goodnight, Granger.”


End file.
